APOLOGETICS 



or 



A Treatise on Christian Evidences 



By 



EZEKIEL BORING KEPHART, A.M., D.D., LL.D. 

Bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ 
Author of " Manual of Church Discipline." 




o , > > , > > 
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DAYTON. OHIO 

Press of United Brethren Publishing House 
1901 



THt UBFASY $r 

CONGRESS, 
Tw Cores Recsivte 

1902 

Copyright entry 

CU-A&s tf^XXa No. 

CQPY 3. 






a) 



Copyright, 1901 

By the U. B. Publishing House 

Dayton, Ohio 

All Hights Reserved 



PREFACE 

Some things are true in all religions. Each system 
seems to have, in a sense, its historical basis. Each sets 
up its claim of supernatural origin. But, one by one, as 
they are subjected to a critical analysis, and the severe 
test of truth is faithfully applied, their claims, which are 
fundamental, are found to consist in myth, not in fact. 

Christianity, which is founded on the Old and the 
New Testaments, is an exception to the above statement. 
The more severe, the broader, and the more scientific the 
tests which have been applied to Christianity, the more 
invulnerable has it proved to such attacks. 

Recognizing the facts set up in the Holy Scriptures, 
first, that they are a revelation from God, setting forth 
both the religious and political history of Israel which, 
under the guidance of God, was in due time to bring forth 
a Saviour that would redeem the world from sin and 
death; second, that in the person of Jesus Christ, the 
world's Saviour and Eedeemer has actually come, and that 
the statements made in the Old and the New Testaments 
concerning the development of Israel and the records re- 
specting Jesus Christ are historically true — these are 
some of the claims set forth in the Christian system — 
the Christian apologist ought to see that his defense of 
Christianity must be more than simply negative. As a 
satisfactory working basis for religious hope and activity 
he must prove the facts of Christianity beyond a reason- 
able doubt. To do this has been the intent of the author. 
The historical evidence of Christianity from its origin has 

iii 



iv Preface 

been abundant, but at the present it is overwhelming. 
The records of the buried past are telling their story, and 
adding their wealth of testimony to the truth of the writ- 
ten Word. Christianity, like many other systems of 
truth, is not exempt from objections which are difficult 
to answer. 

In this volume only a preliminary discussion of a num- 
ber of the fundamental facts are considered, setting forth 
briefly the status of Christian evidences at the present 
time. Ezekiel B. Kephart. 

Annville, Pa. 



CONTENTS. 

Chapter I. 

PAGE 

A Revelation— Its Need and What Is to be Proved, - 7 

Chapter II. 
Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures, - 18 

Chapter III. 
Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, 45 

Chapter IV. 
Miracles— Their Credibility and Intent, 59 

Chapter V. 
Miracles— Continued, 77 

Chapter VI. 
Facts Admitted in Christianity, ----- 99 

Chapter VII. 
The Christ— A Self-Revelation of God to Man, - - 107 

Chapter VIII. 
Prophecy — A Proof of Christianity, - - - - 119 

Chapter IX. 

The Doctrines and Teachings of the Scriptures Accord 

With the Facts of Human History, - - - 139 

v 



vi Contents 

Chapter X. 

PAGE 

The Superiority of Christianity Over Other Religions 
and Its Intrinsic Worth a Proof of Its Divine 
Origin, --------- 147 

Chapter XI. 

Some Objections of the Honest Doubter to Christianity 

Answered, 157 



APOLOGETICS 



Purpose of 
the Book. 



CHAPTER I. 
A Revelation — Its Need and What Is to Be Proved. 

A correct treatise on Christian evidences has to do 
with facts that are vital to the evangelization of the 
world. On the inherent truths of the Christian system 
depends its ultimate triumph. To set forth its divine 
origin, then, as taught in the Old and New Testaments, 
is the purpose of this treatise. Does the Bible contain 
a revelation of the divine Mind to man? is a question 
that thrusts itself upon every investigator of its pages. 
Are the motives of Moses and the prophets, and of Christ 
and his apostles, as contained in the Old and New Testa- 
ments, really true, and is Christianity supernatural, and 
are its claims of God ? If, then, the history recorded in 
the Scriptures, and the statements therein contained 
relative to revealed religion be worthy of belief, these 
questions must receive an affirmative answer. 

It is not the business of the apologist to step aside 
from his legitimate task to prove the existence of God 
and the truths of natural religion. That, together with 
all that belongs to the subject of theism, falls to the lot Limitations 
of the theologian, and comes more properly under the 
head of natural theology. These facts, namely, the 



of the 
Subject. 



8 Apologetics 

existence of God and his manifest government of the 
universe, are taken for granted in these pages. 
No Valid 1. There is no valid objection against a revelation 

Against 0118 °^ ^°^ ^° man * -^ ai1 * s a com P oim( l °f material and 
Eeveiation. spiritual substances. The ego, that is, the personality, 
the rational soul, is spirit, and lives in a material body. 
Thought is the act of the spirit, not of the body; and 
wisdom and knowledge are its possessions, and do not in- 
here in the body. 
Revealed in God is a spirit, and a revelation from him as such to 
Nature. man j s ^ a fter all, but the communication of one spirit 

with another spirit, one person with another. Man, as a 
rational spirit, is endowed with a capacity for receiving 
and storing up knowledge. This he does by coming in 
contact with the thoughts and ideas communicated to 
him from without. The earth beneath his feet and the 
heavens which overshadow him, with all their starry 
host, are constantly yielding up thoughts and ideas to 
him and enriching his knowledge by their revelations of 
truth. True, nature does not speak into human ears with 
human voice, but she communicates to the conscious soul 
by "marks of design," which are plainly written in every 
fiber of her warp and woof, and discloses "the eternal 
power and Godhead" of her supreme Architect. 

But God's special revelation to man, the Old and New 
Testaments, is a personal revelation ; that is, a revelation 
The Special ^ TOm one person to another person. It is nothing more 
Revelation than the great Father communicating useful informa- 
-a Father tion ^° n * s children ; and, too, imparting this inf orma- 
to His tion in his children's own language, a language which 

Children. ^ e ^ we U un( j e rstand. Surely, there is nothing unrea- 



A Revelation 9 

sonable in all this, but it is what reason demands from 
every father who lays claim to have any love for his 
offspring. 

This revelation from God, as Father, to man, as his 
child, implies a making known of the will of the Father 
to the child, with a view that the child may understand 
and obey. In this relation will and obedience imply 
moral obligation. Moral obligation, in turn, implies 
specific knowledge of what is required from the one mak- 
ing the requisition to the one at whose hand obedience is 
required. Nature may speak her ideas in mute forms 
and in her necessary movements, but will God, who is 
historic and can but speak clear and definite truth ? The 
creation of a world may declare "the power and God- 
head" of its creator, but the historic government of that 
world alone can reveal his attributes of justice, love, 
mercy, and goodness. 

2. A general history would be an inadequate medium 
of revelation, for while it may refer to the individual, 
yet it has to do more especially with the race. The acts 
of divine providence are too general in their applica- Revelation 
tion to produce conviction, on the one hand, or the rest ls Historic. 
of "perfect peace" by faith, on the other. But in a 
very special sense should a revelation to creatures mor- 
ally depraved and actually willfully sinful be specific- 
ally historic — "a sacred history within the profane his- 
tory of a fallen world." 

The sacred Scriptures claim to be such a history from 
God, the Father, to his children, of the redemptive act 
in man's behalf and the mediation of Jesus Christ, to 
lift him into conditions of reconciliation with God. 



10 



Apologetics 



Special 

Revelation 

Possible 

and 

Necessary. 



Special 
Revelation 
in Harmony 
with Nature 
of God and 
man. 



3. A special revelation from God to man implies also 
the gift of information to man additional to that al- 
ready had by him, and also man's capacity for receiving 
such special revelation. To deny the possibility of a 
special revelation would be to claim that God had given 
to man all the information he was capable of giving and 
man, capable of receiving, at the very opening of human 
history — at his creation. This does not accord with the 
common sense of mankind. Man knows, on the one 
hand, that he is capable of receiving additional informa- 
tion, and, on the other, he believes that God is able to 
give that information. If, for some great and worthy 
purpose, and to accomplish a noble end, such as the 
redemption and salvation of a world, additional in- 
formation was needful to that world, who would be so 
weak as to acknowledge the need of the added light from 
heaven, and yet turn and deplore God's lack of ability 
to give the needed information ? 

God, the creator of the spirit, understands the consti- 
tution of man, and knows how he may be enlightened 
and influenced ; and, having all power, he can, in accord 
with his own will, adopt means to act upon him. This is 
no infringement upon God's creature by his Creator. 
Just "as a man can be influenced intellectually and mor- 
ally by his fellow-creature without the violation of any 
law of nature or mind, so he can certainly receive com- 
munication from his Creator — the Maker of men and 
all things — without the destruction of the laws of his 
own constitution or those of the world." 

4. In considering the subject of a special revelation, 
the fact must not be overlooked that, as such, it must 



A Revelation 11 

always be regarded as supplemental to God's first and 
universal revelation, namely, the light of nature. The 
facts attesting its divine authority may transcend but 
not violate the laws of man's nature ; they may be super- 
natural, immediate, and additional to nature, but never 
out of accord with, or subversive of its constitution. 

By a reasonable mind it will scarcely be questioned 
that God, in giving a special revelation, is capable also 
of rendering the recipient able to distinguish between 
what comes from the natural sources of knowledge and 



Special 



what is revealed by special revelation. All who recog- Revelation 
nize the possibility of a revelation recognize also God's ^ the Lig ^ 
ability to so communicate his truths to man that he is of Nature. 
without the possibility not to recognize the voice of God 
who speaks. 

The skeptical objection against the supernatural in 
Christianity has at present but little influence on honest 
investigators and earnest truth-seekers ; and, as the world 
recedes from the days of David Hume, the influence 
gradually diminishes. Its syllogistic form is, "That as Hume . a 
testimony is more likely to be false than man's general Objection 
experience, therefore no miracle can be true." Such rea- J^JJfffi 68 
soning would be subversive of all truth, natural as well 
as supernatural or spiritual. The good sense of man- 
kind will always reject it as proving too much to be true 
or relied upon. Skepticism has always failed to recog- 
nize this fact in respect to the miracles recorded in the 
Scriptures, namely, that they were both objects of ex- 
perience and subjects of testimony to the men who 
then lived where they were performed. 

5. While it may be a question of doubt whether the 
apologist is under obligation to show the necessity of a 



12 Apologetics 

special revelation prior to the consideration of its truths 
as matters of fact, yet there is scarcely room for reason- 
able doubt but that such a necessity has, and does now 
really exist. 

(1) The condition of religion among pagan races in 
the past, as well as in the present age, will always be a 
forceful argument in favor of man's need of special re- 
vealed truth. While nature's light has been alike free 
to all, its religious teachings have not been sufficient to 
lift the world out of its sins into conditions of a true 
civilization ; or, at least, it has never succeeded in doing 
so. Xot only has it been the complaint of the serious 
pagan that the needed light from heaven to direct man 
aright in matters of religion and of a future life is want- 
Speciai "^ ^ u ^ even w ^ * ne addition °f the Christian revela- 
Reveiation tion no right-minded person will complain that the world 
ConSticm 121 ^ as ^ 00 mucn light on the subject of immortality and 
of Pagans, all that pertains to human duty. To the serious-minded 
in all ages and of all lands it has been quite apparent 
"that it is not in man to direct his steps." When philos- 
ophy and learning had well nigh reached their culmina- 
tion in the ancient world, the wisest and best of that 
age is represented as expressing his expectation and need 
of a teacher qualified to reveal the mind of God to the 
human race. Said the wise Socrates, "It is necessary 
to wait till such a personage shall appear to teach them 
how they ought to conduct themselves, both towards God 
and towards man." He adds: "Oh, when shall that 
period arrive? And who shall be that teacher? How 
ardently do I desire to see that man, who he is !" 



A Revelation 13 

(2) With all that Jesus says in the Gospels about a 

future life and immortality, and what is necessary upon Need of 

the part of man to gain heaven, who that reads his sacred special 

message does not wish he had given us a little more light a s Shown 

on the future world — on heaven and the relation the dead ^ the 

Gospels, 
sustain to the living ? 

6. Then, if man needs a special revelation from 
heaven, and God is able to give the needed light, and 
man is capable of receiving it, it therefore follows that some 
if God is wise, just, and good such a special revelation Coa ^i d eSd. 
has been given. The parent who has the ability to pro- 
vide for the needs of his offspring, and neglects or re- 
fuses to do so, is not wise, just, and good. The same 
would be true of the great Father of us all. "But as 
a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them 
that fear him." 

If, then, a special revelation is not out of accord with 
the wisdom, justice, and goodness of God, and we appre- 
hend it is not, because men do not agree as to just what 
it ought to be, or in what it should consist beforehand, 
that is, before it is given, will not be regarded as a very 
formidable objection to it by well-balanced minds, and 
their faith is not likely to be shaken by such objections. 
The objection that it is not universal, that is, was not 
given to all men at the same time, and therefore not of 
God, is without force. In the first place, the objector 
fails to note the fact that the special revelation which 
the Bible professes to contain, claims to have been given 
originally to all men, but "as man refused to retain God, 
in his knowledge God gave him up to a reprobate mind." 
Moreover, the same objection might, with equal force, 



14 



Apologetics 



Claims for 
Special 
Revelation 
Considered. 



be urged by the ignorantly skeptical against the truths 
of science, because their light does not shine out of the 
sky with equal clearness to all men at the same time. 
Who would regard as a valid objection against the effi- 
ciency of a medicine the fact that its virtues as such were 
a recent discovery and not equally known to all, and 
all equally benefited by it ? But the fact that genius is 
not the gift of all, and the blessings of science are not 
alike shared by all, is no valid objection against the 
truths of science or the gift of genius. Nor will objec- 
tions based upon difference of opinion among men as to 
what the effect of a special revelation upon mankind 
would be, or should be, have much weight with the ear- 
nest inquirer after truth. 

But if the record of what claims to be a special revela- 
tion does not contain what it professes, and its effects 
upon mankind are other than it professes, or the opposite 
of what it teaches, in whole or in part, then its high 
claims of a revelation from God may be justly ques- 
tioned, yea, rejected. But, on the other hand, when its 
records have been subjected to just criticism, and they 
are found to contain all they claim, and its effects upon 
men are in accord with its teachings, and these teach- 
ings are wise, just, and good, then its claim as a special 
revelation, to say the least, becomes highly probable, and 
must have great weight with right reason. 

7. If, then, a special revelation has been given to 
man, it must be contained either in the so-called sacred 
books among the religions of paganism or in the Bible, 
which is the sacred book among Christians. But the 
student who carefully examines either the Vedas of Bram 



A Revelation 15 

or the Koran of Mohammed, or any other of the sacred 
books of the world's religions, other than the Bible, will 
be convinced that their claim is without foundation in 
truth, and in no true sense compares with the grounds of 
claim upon which the Holy Scriptures rest. 

Heathenism is old, and its religions are the products 
of what it claimed them to be, special revelation; but 
who, in this closing decade of the best century of all 
ages, as he surveys the religious condition of the whole 
of paganism at the present hour, could say, in the light 
of reason, that from its fruits it is entitled to any claims 
whatever as a revelation from God? With its human 
sacrifices and its dark orgies for a period of not less 
than five thousand years, it presents its victims in a 
condition the most degraded and forlorn possible, except 
one, and that would be the victims of no religion at all. 

But it is readily admitted that here and there a bright 
spot lingers on its dark record, yet these may be traced 
to points in its history where it came in touch, di- 
rectly or indirectly, with that Word which God spoke 
out of heaven to Moses and the prophets, Christ and his 
apostles, as promulgated by his people. From its open- 
ing page to the nineteenth century's closing decade its 
history has been one of sorrow and degradation. Take 
its statutes, nation by nation, on the subject of morals 
and the family or home, and, as a rule, they are dark as 
perdition. By the laws of Lycurgus, chastity was con- 
demned, and infanticide was sanctioned. Solon, the law- 
giver of Athens, was no better than Lycurgus, for he 
legalized adultery. The orgies at the temple of Venus 
at Corinth were as at Venus of Babylon. The Midian 



16 Apologetics 

woman who had less than five husbands was looked upon 
by the law with contempt. Under pagan sanction, pagan 
mothers performed the religious rite of sacrificing their 
children to Moloch, whose mouths were seven, which led 
to seven flaming furnaces within. The Persians buried 
their children alive, according to Herodotus. To Juno's 
shrine on the height of Hierapolis came pagan mothers 
in sorrowing crowds and flung their weeping children 
forth from the mountain's brow to be dashed to pieces 
on crags below. Should what history records be an as- 
tonishment, that "the feet of pagan women, hastening in 
despair, wore smooth the rocks up the rugged sides of the 
promontories of Taygetus and Taenarum, from the sum- 
mits of which they flung themselves down to death in 
the depths of the Laconian Sea ?" Says Justin, speaking 
of primitive rites and superstitions, "They immolated 
men as victims ; and children, whose tender years excited 
the pity even of enemies, they placed upon their altars, 
purchasing peace of the gods by the blood of those for 
whose life the gods were accustomed principally to be 
implored." 1 Diodorus, in speaking of the Carthagenians, 
consuming their children in honor of Saturn, because 
they supposed they had offended him by restraining their 
human sacrifices, says, "Therefore, that they might cor- 
rect their errors without delay, they immolated in public 
sacrifice two hundred chosen boys of their principal no- 
bility." 2 Like customs and religious rites are practiced 
even at the present time by the pagan races almost 
around the world. China, India, Hindustan, and Af- 

1 Justin Hist. Lib. 18, chap. 6. 2 Did. Sec. Lib. 20. 



A Revelation 17 

rica are living examples of the horrors and superstitions 
of heathenism. It may be said in truth that no well- 
informed people henceforth will recognize the sacred 
books of paganism as of divine authority and worthy of 
man's recognition as such. 

Socrates and Plato, as were the sages both of India 
and China, were bright spots which loomed up on the 
dark dial of pagan night; but it must not be forgotten 
that all were younger than Abraham and Moses, and 
some of them at least, aye, the greatest of them, were 
born after the death of David, Solomon, and Isaiah. 
Plato painted his picture of "the good man who was to 
come," and Socrates expected a legislator who would re- 
veal the will of Deity to the mind of man, but before 
either of them was born, Isaiah had written his marvel- 
ous chapter on the advent and sufferings of our Lord. 
What access these masters of antiquity had to writings 
of the Hebrew sages we do not know, but we do know 
that the queen of the south " came from the uttermost 
parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon," and 
that Plato acknowledged his acquaintance with Mussel- 
man, a Jew, from whom, he states, "he and his com- 
pany," while on their way to Egypt, "received much 
more information than they were able to impart to the 
Jew." It is a fact admitted that the God of the Bible, 
under Solomon the great king, built his temple at Jeru- 
salem, which served as a mighty Pharos to the pagan 
world. Then, with our eyes turned to the Bible, we 
commence to investigate its claims of divine origin. 



Book. 



CHAPTEE II. 

[Authenticity of the Holt Scriptures. 

The Bible, of all books, is the most strange, the most 
wonderful. The dignity of its composition, its age, 
The Bible a an( ^ ^ e i m P or tant nature of the subjects treated in its 
wonderful pages, all, all are wonderful. It comes not to man teach- 
ing of God only, nor does it limit its teachings to com- 
mands, precepts, doctrines, . and ordinances, but it 
abounds, also, in human history, both of individuals 
and nations ; and no other book so faithfully delineates 
the silent, secret workings of the human soul. The 
Bible at once introduces its reader to the infinite, car- 
ries him back through the historic period of the hu- 
man race, and backward still through the rock-written 
history of the dead ages to the very dawn of creation, 
and lays open to him the foundations of religion, mo- 
rality, and truth. It then carries him forward into the 
mysterious, unknown future, and unfolds to him a 
sphere of life where matter obtains not, and, by an 
inscrutable mystery, the bodies of the redeemed are 
etherealized into spirit — a realm of higher realities, 
where the things of sense are but fleeting shadows, and 
God dwells in the presence of his happy children. 

The Bible is composed of two testaments, the Old 
and the New, which two constitute the Holy Scriptures, 
and comprise the entire foundation of religious belief 

18 



Two 
Testaments. 



Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures 19 

of both Jew and Christian. The former is esteemed es- 
sential by the Jews, but both by the Christians. 

The Scriptures, then, become a subject of vital im- 
portance when thus considered, not to the believer only, 
but to the unbeliever also; for if the Bible be an au- importance 

thentic book, too high an estimate cannot be put upon of the 

,- , , . * ji o-T Scriptures. 

its doctrines and teachings. Are these Scriptures au- 
thentic ? that is, do "they relate matters of fact as they 
really happened" ? The discussion of this question will 
constitute the subject matter in these pages. 

Authenticity of the Scriptures. 

In answering the above question, it is necessary to 
examine, first, into the reality, the age, and the actions Method and 
of the leading persons mentioned in the Scriptures, as theinquiry. 
the instruments used in giving this revelation to the 
world, and then some of the more important events re- 
corded. 

1. No part of the Scriptures can be traced to the 
perversions or misapprehensions of the human imagina- 
tion, nor can its theology be resolved into a mistaken 
history, a corruption of names, or a puerile allegory. 
The student who seriously studies the Bible and the 
religion of its adherents, will find them totally different 
from the sacred books and religions of the peoples by 
whom these believers were surrounded. By a succession origin of 
of revelations a "knowledge of the one true God" was the 
ever kept prominently before them. Every intervention 
of paganism was set aside by some miraculous power. 
Although human reason in an uncultivated state is ever 
wont to tire of the abstract and metaphysical notions of 



Apologetics 



Teaching 
of the 
Scriptures. 



the divine attributes, yet by these children of the Most 
High they were always regarded with veneration. He 
is represented as infinite, eternal, invisible, unchange- 
able, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, a God 
who corresponds not to any of "the heathen deities." 
This venerable volume, under the above title, consisting 
of sixty-six independent books, purports to have been 
written by many different authors, extending over a 
period of fifteen hundred to two thousand years. The 
Old Testament, which is composed of thirty-nine books, 
claims to contain the first revelation of God to man, 
and was the foundation of Jewish institutions. The 
New Testament claims to contain the last revelation, 
and these Scriptures, conjointly, constitute the founda- 
tion of Christian institutions. 

In a brief treatise like this, it would be impossible to 
take up in detail the different authors of the books of 
the Bible and inquire into all the leading events in bib- 
lical history. Hence, we shall select only the more im- 
portant. 

(1) These records state that Moses was the leader and 
the lawgiver of the Jews, not less than sixteen hundred 
years before the Christian era, and the author of their 
religious institutions; that Jesus Christ is the Son of 
God and the Saviour of the world ; that he lived during 
the reign of Augustus Caesar, having been born in the 
days of Herod, and was put to death by Pontius Pilate, 
procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius Caesar. 
The patient truth-seeker, on investigating this subject, 
finds ample proof to justify him in believing the above 
historic facts. 



Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures 21 

(a) For a period of almost four thousand years those 

best qualified to judge have harmonized in the opinion- 

that Moses was the legislator of the Jews, the author 

of their religious institutions, and led them out of 

Egypt. The Jewish church, from its remotest antiquity, Moses and 

has ascribed the Pentateuch to Moses, and to no other ms Work 

According 
hand. The Christian church, from its foundation, with- to the 

out a dissenting voice, has recognized it as the work of Scriptures. 
the Jewish lawgiver. The traditional and national his- 
tory of the Jews rests upon this ground, and is evi- 
denced by the beliefs and teachings of that singular peo- 
ple at the present, as they are scattered among all na- 
tions upon the face of the earth. Indeed, this is cer- 
tain, that "the very same principles of historical evi- 
dence which assure us of the truth of any unquestioned 
fact of profane history assure us of the truth of this." 
That the Jews existed as a nation very anciently can- 
not be denied, and that early in their history they were 
systematically organized into a government, their own 
writings abundantly testify. That this work of sys- 
tematic organization, this leading them out of Egypt, 
and establishing them as a nation, with laws and a 
religion, must have been the work of some great, com- 
manding spirit, a reasonable mind will not doubt. The 
Jews, in harmony with their historical records, affirm 
that Moses was this commanding spirit, who not only 
led them out of Egypt and for forty years through a 
desert of sand, but also organized them into a nation 
and engrafted upon them laws and a religion which 
have kept them a distinct people for more than forty 
stormy centuries. 



22 



Apologetics 



Testimony 
of Heathen 
Writers 
Regarding 

Moses. 



(&) But aside from Jewish records and Christian tes- 
timony, the most respectable heathen writers witness to 
the same facts. Josephus, in his first book against 
Apion, quotes Manetho, of Egypt, as giving an account 
of the time, the manner, and very many of the principal 
events that obtained during the sojourn of the Jews in 
his country. The same author also quotes Cheremon, 
Apolonius, and Lysimachus as witnessing to the same 
facts. Justin, a Eoman historian, in his abridgement 
of Trogus Pompeius (Book 36, chapter 2), makes 
mention of the origin of the Jews from the ten tribes 
of Israel ; speaks of the "beauty of Moses," and declares 
him to be the "commander of the Jews who went out of 
Egypt"; of the "institution of the Sabbath" and the 
priesthood of Aaron. 

"The Orphic Verses," supposed to be a thousand years 
older than our era, teach the worship of one God as com- 
manded by that law, "which was given by him who was 
drawn out of the water and received two tables of stone 
from the hand of God." Trogus Pompeius, a Eoman, 
and author of a universal history, who lived in the Au- 
gustinian age, says, according to Justin, "But the Egyp- 
tians . . . expelled Moses and the diseased from 
the borders of Egypt." 

Diodorus Siculus, in his first book, in speaking of 
those nations which claimed to have received their laws 
from God, adds, "Among the Jews was Moses, who 
called God by the name of Iao." Tacitus declares that 
"Moses gave a new form of worship to the Jews and a 
system of religious ceremonies the reverse of every thing- 
known to any age or country." The distinguished Greek 



Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures 23 

historian and geographer, Strabo, born during the cen- 
tury before Christ, and who traveled through Greece, 
Italy, Egypt, and Asia, that he might obtain a correct 
knowledge of the geography and facts of history of these 
countries he visited, "gives an account of the laws of 
Moses as forbidding images and limiting divine worship 
to one invisible and universal Being." 1 

Josephus, in his criticisms on Apion, or rather Man- 
etho, after quoting Manetho, adds, in substance, "Two 
things are evident from Manetho's account; first, that 
the Jews came from another country to Egypt; second, 
that they left Egypt again, and that, nearly a thousand 
years before the Trojan war." He again quotes Man- 
etho as saying, "That priest who settled their polity and 
their laws [the Jews] , he was by birth of Heliopolis, and 
his name was Osarsiph, from Osiris, the god of Heliopo- 
lis, but he changed his name and called himself Moses." 

Many more ancient authorities might be cited to es- 
tablish the existence, the age, and the actions of the Jew- 
ish lawgiver, but the testimony already adduced makes 
it clear that Moses was as commonly so regarded among 
the ancient nations as among the Jews themselves. 

2. As to the history of Jesus Christ, the testimony J® 8 ™ 
is even more satisfactory and abundant than that in re- 
spect to Moses. In the very nature of things, this would 
be so. The age in which he lived is comparatively mod- 
ern and peculiarly historic. The age of Greek litera- 
ture had passed, and Grecian civilization had culmi- 
nated more than three hundred years before Christ was 

1 Geography 1: 16. 



24 



Apologetics 



Testimony 
of the 
Church 
Fathers. 



born. The Koman empire was in its Augustinian age, 
with its temple of Janus closed, and at peace with the 
world. It was an age well fitted for thought and rigid 
investigation; hence the witnesses are many. The four 
Gospels contain the history of Christ's advent, his so- 
journ, teaching, death, and resurrection. They def- 
initely state the age in which these events occurred, and 
name the then ruling sovereigns of Eome and Judea — 
Caesar Augustus and Herod, Tiberius and Pilate, the 
two former at his birth, the two latter at his death. 

(1) To the facts thus recorded in the Gospels, the 
church which now is, and has ever been from the time of 
its organization by Christ and his apostles, as history 
witnesses, bears abundant testimony. The well authenti- 
cated writings of Barnabas, Clement, Hermas, Polycarp, 
and Ignatius have reached our day. These men were 
contemporary with the apostles, and the three first 
named are mentioned by name in the New Testament, 
the fourth was a disciple of St. John, and the fifth dis- 
coursed not unfrequently with the apostles of our Lord. 
Their writings abound in Scripture quotations to a de- 
gree that scarcely is there a book in the New Testament 
not quoted or alluded to by one or the other of these 
writers. More than two hundred and twenty quotations 
and allusions to the Scriptures are found in their writ- 
ings, although but little of their work is now extant. 

In the second century, at Carthage, lived Tertullian, 
a learned man, and a writer vigorous in defense of 
Christianity. Dr. Lardner says of his writings, "There 
are more and longer quotations of the small volume of 
the New Testament in this one Christian author than of 



Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures 25 

all the work of Cicero in the writers of every character 
for several ages." Irenseus and Clement of Alexandria 
were of this century, and writers in the defense of Chris- 
tianity. Irenaeus quotes from Ephesians 5 : 30, "For 
we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his 
bones." Clement writes, "The blessed Paul in the first 
epistles to the Corinthians says, 'Be not children in un- 
derstanding.' " Justin Martyr flourished in this cen- 
tury. He was of heathen parents, and studied in the 
different schools of the philosophers in Ms day, but 
became a convert to Christianity. He also wrote many 
works in the defense of Christianity. He gives his tes- 
timony to "the genuine and authentic accounts of Jesus 
Christ and his doctrine," as contained in the four Gos- 
pels. He also affirms that the Book of Revelation was 
written by John, "one of the apostles of Christ." In 
the third century lived and flourished Origen, about the 
year 230. He is represented by Jerome as the most dis- 
tinguished doctor of the church since the apostles, had 
the Scriptures by heart, and his labors were most abun- 
dant in studying and explaining them. His writings 
against Celsus, an Epicurean philosopher, and an enemy 
to Christianity, are well known to the church. Diony- 
sius of Alexandria, Victorinus, a bishop of Germany, 
and Cyprian, a bishop of Carthage, all wrote able de- 
fenses of the Christian religion, in which they have 
quoted passages from almost every book in the New Tes- 
tament. So copious are the quotations of the writers 
of the second and third centuries, that if the New Testa- 
ment were lost, a copy of it, complete, might almost be 
collected from their writings. 



26 



Apologetics 



Testimony 
of Heathen 
Writers 
Regarding 
Christ. 



(2) But the enemies of Christ, as well as his friends, 
give testimony to these historic facts. Tacitus, in his 
"Annals' ? (15-44), says: "Nero put those who com- 
monly went by the name of Christians to the most ex- 
quisite tortures. The author of this name was Christ, 
who was capitally punished in the reign of Tiberius, by 
Pontius Pilate, the procurator." 

Suetonius, secretary to Trojan, and the author of the 
"Lives of the Twelve Caesars," states that "in the time 
of Claudius, the Jews were making a disturbance at 
Eome, Christ being their leader." Cerinthus, a Jew and 
a noted heretic of the first century, is cited by Irenasus 
as teaching that "Jesus was not born of a virgin, but of 
Joseph and Mary, and at the time of his baptism the 
Christ descended from 'that principality which is over 
all' in the form of a dove." 

Porphyry, an early opponent of the Christian faith, 
and author of fifteen books against Christianity, wit- 
nesses for Christ by stating that "after Jesus was wor- 
shiped, Esculapius and the other gods did no more 
converse with men." He was well acquainted with the 
church in his day, and in his writings makes frequent 
reference not only to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and 
John, but also to the Acts of the Apostles and the epistle 
to the Galatians. 1 

Julian, who succeeded Constantius to the empire in 
361, wrote a work against Christians, in which there is 
valuable testimony to the history of Christianity, and 
the authenticity of the New Testament. He states that 
Jesus was born in the reign of Augustus Csesar, at the 



*Lardner, Vol. IV., page 234. 



Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures 27 

time Cyrenius levied a tax on Judea, and assigns the 
time of the beginning and propagation of Christianity 
to the reign of Tiberius and Claudius. He quotes 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the Acts of the 
Apostles as the historical books received by the Chris- 
tians as of authority, and "the only authentic memoirs 
of Jesus Christ and his apostles and the doctrine 
preached by them/' While Julian acknowledges that 
Christ and his disciples performed many wonderful 
works, such as restoring sight to the blind, healing the 
lame, casting out demons, walking upon the sea, and 
stilling the waves ; and that multitudes of all classes in 
Greece and Italy, even before John wrote his Gospel, 
nocked to the standard of the cross, he, nevertheless, 
strives zealously to diminish not only the number of the 
converts, but their quality, also. The spirit mani- 
fested by him throughout his entire treatise against 
Christianity is one of spite and bitter hatred. Most in- 
dignantly he mentions Peter and Paul, and in the same 
spirit he vainly sought to give the lie to the Galilean 
by attempting to restore the Jews to Jerusalem. Pliny, 
the younger, distinguished as an orator, historian, and 
statesman, born at Como, in A. D. 61 or 62, says that 
"Christ was worshiped as a god among the Christians; 
that they would rather suffer death than blaspheme him ; 
that they received a sacrament, and by it entered into a 
vow of abstaining from sin and wickedness, conforming 
to the advice of Paul ; that they had private assemblies 
of worship, and used to sing together in hymns." 1 

^liny Epist. lib. 10. 



28 Apologetics 

Celsus flourished in the year 176. He was a man of 
letters, and is regarded as an eminent philosopher among 
modern skeptics. His arguments against the Christians 
•were labored and able. His testimony cannot be rejected 
as deficient in antiquity, nor can any one accuse him 
of a want of zeal to overthrow Christianity. A man of 
his genius, industry, and learning must have known if 
there were anything spurious in the authorship of the 
New Testament writings. 

Origen, in his answer to the arguments of this learned 
opponent of Christianity, enumerates about eighty pas- 
sages from the New Testament, or references to them, 
quoted by Celsus. These quotations evidence that he 
was acquainted with the Gospels of Luke, Matthew, and 
John, and also several of the epistles of Paul. He con- 
cedes throughout his argument that the Christian Scrip- 
tures were the work of their purported authors, and not 
a scintillation of suspicion to the contrary is anywhere 
apparent. In the language of Dr. Doddridge, "Who can 
forbear adoring the depths of divine wisdom in laying 
up such a firm foundation of our faith in the gospel 
history, in the writings of one who was so inveterate 
an enemy to it, arid so indefatigable in his attempts to 
overthrow it ?" 

One more noted opponent to Christianity we mention 
in this connection. It is Hierocles, the man who set 
up the reputed miracles of Apollonius Tyranaaus to off- 
set the miracles of Christ, which he did not deny. He 
was a learned man, and wrote two books against Chris- 
tianity. He refers to the Gospels and the two epistles 
and mentions Peter and Paul bv name. The testimony 



Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures 29 

of this author clearly establishes three facts : first, that 
the Scriptures were then in existence; second, that 
Christianity as an institution then existed; and third, 
that Christ was its author. 

Dr. Lardner says of these authors, "They bear a fuller 
and more valuable testimony to the books of the New 
Testament, and to the facts of evangelical history, and 
to the affairs of Christianity than all our other witnesses 
besides." Dr. Paley adds, in effect, "These witnesses 
prove that neither Celsus in the second, Porphyry in the 
third, nor Julian in the fourth century suspected the 
authenticity of these books, or even insinuated that 
Christians were mistaken in the authors to whom they 
ascribed them." And it may be added, can any reason- 
able mind demand more and stronger proof to the truth 
of the facts claimed by the Scriptures than that in Ce- 
rinthus, Celsus, Porphyry, Hierocles, and Julian, all of 
whom were learned controversialists as well as devout 
opponents and persecutors of Christians, except Cerin- 
thus, their testimony extending from the first century to 
the year 361 of our Lord? 

3. Now by examining the catalogues of Josephus and Old 
Philo, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint Regarded 
version, we have ample proof that the books of the Old sacred 
Testament, which we regard as sacred, were so regarded ciirist. 
by the Jews long before, and at the time of the advent. 

(1) Philo, the Jew, according to C. Segford, must 
have had the same books that we have, for he quotes 
from almost all of them. But the most satisfactory wit- 
ness on this point is Josephus. In his criticisms on 2^°^°* 
Apion (1. 8), he says: "For we have not an innumer- 



Samaritan 



30 Apologetics 

able multitude of books among us, . . . but only 
twenty-two books, which contain the record of all the 
past times, which are justly divine. And of them five 
belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the tradi- 
tion of the origin of mankind till his death. . . . 
The prophets who were after Moses wrote down what was 
done in their time in thirteen books. The remaining 
four books contain hymns to God and precepts for the 
conduct of business life." Xow, when we take into ac- 
count that Josephus follows the custom of the Alexan- 
drian Jews in enumerating his catalogue, we find that 
his custom is identical with ours; that is, he adds Buth 
to Judges and Lamentations to Jeremiah. 

(2) The Samaritan Pentateuch is so nearly identical 
Pentateuch, "with the Jewish that it is evident the former is a copy 

of the latter. The Jews and Samaritans have been at 
enmity from antiquity; both are the descendants of 
Abraham, and alike claim Moses as their lawgiver and 
author of the Pentateuch. They have ever watched each 
other with a jealous eye, and both alike have watched the 
Christian church; but the Pentateuch with the Chris- 
tian, the Jew, and the Samaritan is the same. Hence, 
the forceful evidence that no change has been made in 
this sacred document, at least, since the time the Samari- 
tans received their copy, either from the ten tribes, whom 
they succeeded, as an inheritance, or from the priest who 
came and "dwelt at Bethel and taught them how they 
should fear the Lord." 

(3) The Septuagint version is an important factor in 
version a establishing the authenticity of the Old Testament, for 
Witness. ft | s the most important and the oldest complete trans- 



Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures 31 

lation of the Scriptures in any language. This Greek 
version, especially the five books of Moses, dates not 
later than two hundred and eighty years before Christ. 
The other books of the Hebrew canon followed in trans- 
lation, and the entire version was completed not later 
than the middle of the second century B. C. This ver- 
sion, containing the sacred canon of the Jews, as ac- 
knowledged and used, at least by the Alexandrian Jews, 
evidences the fact that, for a period of one hundred and 
fifty years prior to the Advent, the Jewish Scriptures 
were complete as we have them now. 

That Ezra, after the exile, collected the sacred books 
of the Hebrews as now recognized by Jews and Chris- 
tians, except the books of Malachi and Ezra, is a fact 
that has scarcely been questioned ; and shortly after the 
Maccabasan persecution the Old Testament appears as 
a whole. 

Also, as Dr. Philip Schaff says in his "Companion to 
the Greek Testament," page 23, "It is a remarkable fact, 
not yet sufficiently explained, that the great majority of 
the citations of the Old Testament in the New, which 
amount to about 280, are taken from the Septuagint, or 
at all events agree better with it than with the Hebrew 
original." 

The Christian church has always received the Old 
Testament as authentic, and the first revelation of God 
to man. To this effect it received the endorsement of 
Christ and his apostles. More than two hundred quota- 
tions from the Old Testament are made by the writers 
of the New, which surely they would not have made had 
they suspected anything spurious or unauthentic in. these 
Scriptures. 



32 Apologetics 

Canon of 4. As to the New Testament : The books which now 

Testament com P ose i* are the same as those placed in the sacred 
canon by the church fathers. Besides the many, many 
quotations by the apostolic fathers and their immediate 
successors, not less than eleven distinct, formal cata- 
logues, comprising the present books of the New Testa- 
ment, were formed, and two of them by the highest coun- 
cils of the church. These catalogues are now extant. 
The Assyrian Bible contains the four Gospels, the Acts, 
fourteen Pauline epistles, the epistles of James, I. Peter, 
and I. John. This collection is surely not later than 
the beginning of the third century, and was, at that time, 
the canon of that part of the church. 

"The Muratorian Fragment," which dates not later 
than the last quarter of the second century, includes "the 
four Gospels, Acts, thirteen epistles of Paul, I. John, 
II. John, Jude, Eevelation of St. John, and that of 
Peter." 1 

It is evident from the preceding statements that at 
the close of the second century our present New Testa- 
ment canon was complete, and had been, in a fragmen- 
tary form, unanimously endorsed by the church, not- 
withstanding the canonical authority of some of the 
books had not as yet been settled, and no canon adopted 
in a universal sense. 

About the } r ear 315, Eusebius, bishop of Csesarea, 
formed a catalogue of the New Testament Scriptures, in 
which he mentioned all of our present books. 2 



1 Schaff-Herzog Cyclopedia, E. R. K., Page I 

2 Lardner, Vol. II., page 368. 



Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures 33 

The council of Laodicea published a catalogue in the 
year 360, differing from ours in nothing except in the 
omission of the book of Revelation. 1 

Athanasius and Cyril, early in the fourth century, 
published catalogues which agree with our own, save in 
the omission of the Book of Revelation in the catalogue 
furnished by Cyril. 

The council at Carthage, which met in the year 397, 
composed of forty-four bishops, of which Augustine, 
bishop of Hippo, was a member, declared, "It is or- 
dained that nothing beside the canonical Scriptures be 
Tead in the church under the name of divine Scriptures ; 
and the canonical Scriptures are these," etc. The list 
given is identical with our New Testament books. 2 

Rufinus, of Aquileia, in "Explication of the Apostles' 
Creed," says, "It will not be improper to enumerate here 
the books of the Old and New Testaments, which we 
find by the monuments of the Fathers to have been de- 
livered to the churches as inspired by the Holy Spirit." 
This list of books is identical with ours. 3 

To these might be added the catalogue of Epiphanius, 
of Gregory Nazianzen, and of Jerome, with many others', 
but a sufficient number have been introduced to estab- 
lish the fact that "by the year 397 the canon of the New 
Testament was established," and has thus descended to 
us in a way that we have the assurance that our Scrip- 
tures are those placed in the sacred canon by the church 
fathers. 



1 Lardner, page 414. 

•Lardner's "Credential Gospel History," Vol. II., page 574. 

•Lardner, Vol. II., page 574. 

3 



84 



Apologetics 



Documen- 
tary Evi- 
dence. 



Apology of 
Aristides. 



5. It is well known that Polycarp was a disciple of 
St. John, and heard the apostle, and was the instructor 
of Irenaeus. Irenaeus attributes the four Gospels to the 
apostles, whom Polycarp knew. His words are : "John 
relates his original, effectual, and glorious generation 
from the Father, thus declaring, 'In the beginning was 
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 
was God/ Luke takes up his priestly character. . . . 
Matthew again relates his generation as a man, saying, 
"The Book of the generation of Jesus the son of David, 
the son of Abraham.' Mark, on the other hand, com- 
mences with the prophetical spirit from on high, say- 
ing, 'The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it 
is written in Esaias, the prophet/ " 

But, in addition to the evidence already adduced, the 
discoveries made within the last quarter of the century 
just closed, are remarkably accumulative, especially as 
they relate to the authenticity of the fourth Gospel, 
about which there has been some question among critics. 
The documents which are of special interest are four, 
namely : 

1. The Apology of Aristides. This was presented 
to the Emperor Hadrian at Athens in the year 125. The 
following is an extract from it : "The Christians reckon 
the beginning of their religion from Jesus Christ, who 
is named the Son of God Most High ; and it is said that 
God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin 
took and clad himself with flesh, and in a daughter of 
man there dwelt the Son of God. This is taught from 
that gospel which a little while ago was spoken among 
them as being preached ; wherein if ye also will read, ye 



Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures 35 

will comprehend the power that is upon it. This Jesus, 
then, was born of the tribe of the Hebrews, and he had 
twelve disciples, in order that a certain dispensation of 
his might be fulfilled. He was pierced by the Jews, and 
he died and was buried; and they say that after three 
days he rose and ascended to heaven; and then these 
twelve disciples went forth into the known parts of the 
world and taught concerning his greatness with all hu- 
mility and sobriety. And on this account those also who 
to-day believe in this preaching are called Christians, 
who are well known." 1 This apology, in a brief, terse 
form, sets forth the teachings of the New Testament 
Scriptures as we have them now and were held then. 

(2) The Diatessaron of Tatian. This is a most 
valuable document, as it was intended to be a harmony 

of the four Gospels. The book was long lost. It was 

Diatessaron 
referred to by Eusebius as a "collection of the Gospels, f Tatian. 

called the Diatessaron." Theodoret says, "Tatian also 
composed a gospel called the Diatessaron." 2 The same 
author says, "I myself found more than two hundred 
such books (the Diatessaron) held in respect in the 
churches of our parts." 3 The Diatessaron belongs to 
the early part of the second century, and puts the au- 
thenticity of the four Gospels to rest in the minds of all 
reasonable men. 

This Tatian was a pupil and a disciple of Justin 
Martyr, who speaks of, and quotes from the "Memoirs 
of the Apostles," from which, there is not ground for a 

1 Contemporary Review, Vol. LX., page 109. The Apology of Aris- 
tides, by George F. Stokes. 

2 E. H. 4 : 29. 3 Fabulse Hsereticse 1 : 20. 



Syriac 
Version. 



36 Apologetics 

reasonable doubt, his pupil composed his "Harmony of 
the Gospels." The Diatessaron now discovered verifies 
the correctness of these quotations claimed to have been 
taken from it by so many different authors, and confirms 
the description also given of it by later commentators. 
By a critical comparison of this document with the four 
Gospels, it becomes at once manifest that Tatian's Gos- 
pels which he had in hand must have been essentially 
the same as the four we have at the present time. 

(3) The newly-discovered Syriac Version of the Scrip- 
tures. This version was discovered in 1892 in the Con- 
vent of St. Catharine on Mt. Sinai, by Mrs. Lewis and 
her sister, Mrs. Gibson, and contains the textual varia- 
tions found in the Curetonian Syriac version, which 
was brought, among other manuscripts, from the monas- 
teries in the Nitrian Desert, in Lower Egypt, in 1833. 

It is conceded that the Curetonian version is a trans- 
lation older than the Peshito version, which was in gen- 
eral use in the Syrian church in the second and third 
centuries. The textual variations in the Curetonian cor- 
respond, as a rule, to those found in the Diatessaron of 
Tatian, which, as already stated, was prepared early in 
the second century. But while this translation accords 
with the texts of the best and the oldest manuscripts, yet 
it is most manifest that in some respects it was inten- 
tionally corrupted to cater to certain heresies. Says Dr. 
G. F. Wright 1 : "The most conspicuous instance of 
this relates to the miraculous conception of Christ which 
we know to have been denied by Cerinthus at the close 
of the first century. According to Irenseus, 2 Cerinthus 

1 Scientific Aspects of Christian Evidences, page 230. 
a Ireneeus, Against Heresies, bk 1, chap. 26. 



Peter. 



Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures 37 

represented 'Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, 
but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to 
the ordinary course of human generation, while he nev- 
ertheless was more righteous, prudent, and wise than 
other men. Moreover, after his baptism Christ de- 
scended upon him in the form of a dove from the Su- 
preme Ruler, and that then he proclaimed the unknown 
Father, and performed miracles.' With these views of 
Cerinthus concerning the person of Christ the sect called 
Ebionites are said to have agreed." 

(4) The Gospel of Peter. This was discovered in a 
package taken from a Christian tomb in Akhmim, in Up- Goapel of 
per -Egypt, and published in 1892. It is of much im- 
portance. This is only a fragment, containing in all 
about sixteen hundred words. All the modern world 
knew of it was what the church fathers said about it; 
but now it comes in as an evidence of the authenticity of 
the Scriptures, — not that it is to be received as a com- 
plete Gospel written by Peter, but only a fragment or 
a compilation from the four Gospels and bearing his 
name; and as an evidence that at the time it was pre- 
pared the four Gospels were in existence and received by 
the church. It is a fact, says Norton, "that no apoc- 
ryphal gospels, real or supposed, are mentioned by any 
writer before the time of Origen, besides Irenaeus and 
Clement, except Serapion quoted by Eusebius." About 
the close of the second century, Serapion was bishop of 
Antioch, and wrote a tract concerning the "Gospel of 
Peter which Eusebius gives in his "Ecclesiastical His- 
tory/' Book IV., chapter 12. "Another tract was com- 
posed by Serapion concerning the Gospel according to 



38 Apologetics 

Peter, so called, the object of which was to confute the 
errors contained in it, on account of some in the church 
at Ehossus who had been led by this book to adopt het- 
erodox opinions. From this it may be worth while to 
quote a few words in which he expresses his opinion con- 
cerning it. 'We, brethren/ he writes, 'acknowledge the 
authority both of Peter and the other apostles, as we do 
that of Christ; but we reject, with good reason, the writ- 
ings which falsely bear their names, well knowing that 
such have not been handed down to us. I, indeed, when 
I was with you, supposed that you were all going on in 
a right faith; and, not reading through the Gospel un- 
der the name of Peter which was produced by them 
(those who were pleased with it), I said, If this is all 
that troubles you, let the book be read. But having since 
learnt from what has been told me that their minds had 
fallen into some heresy, I hasten to be with you again, 
brethren, so that you may expect me shortly. Xow 
we, brethren, know that a like heresy was held by Mar- 
cion, who also contradicted himself, not comprehending 
what he said, as you may learn from what has been writ- 
ten to you. 1 For we have been able to procure this gos- 
pel from others who use it, that is, from his followers, 
who are called Docetse (for the greater part of the opin- 
ions in question belong to their system), and, having 
gone through it, we have found it for the most part con- 

1 As this sentence is unimportant, and as I believe the present text 
to be corrupt, I have ventured to render it as perhaps it should be 

amended. It now Stands thus: 'H/aei? Se, a8e\<poL, KaTa\af36fi.evoi bnoias 
ijv alpeoew? 6 MapKiavbs, xai eavroi -qvavTiovro, fir) voCiv a eAaAei, a fia6rj<Te<T0e e£ 
Siv vft.lv kypa$r\. 'E8vv7J<hjM-ev yap nap aAAwv, k. t. A. I WOUld read the first 
Words as follows: 'H/xeis He, <i8eA<J>ol, KaTaAaj3o/aev on ojuoias J)v aipeVews o 

Map/aW os koX eavria rfvavTiovro, k. t. a. There is also some uncertainty 
about the precise meaning of the next sentence; fortunately this 
uncertainity does not extend to anything important in the paragraph. 



Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures 39 

formable to the true doctrine of the Saviour; but there 
are some things exceptionable, which we subjoin for your 
information/ " 

This fragment of the original document amply veri- 
fies the correctness of Serapion's statements. It is a 
compilation, but by whom we know not, with a coloring 
and interpolation made, no doubt, in the interest of cer- 
tain heresies and especially the Docetic. But the real 
point here is, the author of "Peter's Gospel" used 
John's Gospel in his compilation, as well as Matthew's, 
Mark's, and Luke's, thus showing not only that the 
fourth Gospel was in existence, but that it was recog- 
nized by the churches. From the fact that Justin Mar- 
tyr was well acquainted with this reported Gospel of 
Peter, it is manifest that it must belong to the first half 
of the second century. 

How brief, then, the period between the death of our 
Lord and the death of his apostles, to the time when 
the four Gospels were put in the form we now have them, 
and became the recognized authority of the church. 

(1) Another ancient record must here be taken into 
account. This is the Tel-el- Amarna Tablets, discovered Tei-ei- 
in 1887. They are written in cuneiform characters, and ^JS? 
number more than two hundred tablets. They belong 
to the fifteenth century B. C, and consist of a series of 
letters between Egyptian and Asiatic kings. 

At this time Israel was yet in Egypt, and these letters 
throw much light on the political condition and civiliza- 
tion both of Palestine and Egypt at that period. It is 
a little strange that they were written, too, in the Baby- 
lonian language. They come from Byblos, Tyre, Gezer, 



40 Apologetics 

and Ashkelon, localities well known to biblical history; 
and from such persons as Azirn, Shubandi, from the 
king of Mitonni to Amenophis III., from Alishaya, in 
Upper Mesopotamia to Amenophis III., and from Bur- 
raburyash to King Amenophis IV. The representations 
given in these records are in strict accord with what the 
Bible states was the real condition of society in those 
countries at that time. The political, social, and com- 
mercial activity in western Asia, and the extended in- 
ternational communications which obtained, according 
to these ancient records, revolutionize previous modern 
thought respecting those primitive days. 

(2) Israel at an early period came in contact with a 
great people, the Hittites, whose history is shadowed in 
Hittite ^ ee P m ystery. It was from Ephron, the Hittite, that 

Testimony. Abraham "purchased the field and the cave" in which he 
"buried Sarah his wife." In Joshua, we read of "the 
land of the Hittites," but outside of the Bible the world 
really knew nothing about this great people until in the 
last half of the nineteenth century. And even from the 
Bible all that could be learned of them was, that such 
a people existed in Palestine in the days of Abraham, 
and that they were yet in the country when Israel came 
out of Egypt. But nothing of value could be gathered 
respecting their history, either from Egyptian, Ar- 
menian, or Assyrian records. As a result, by not a few 
critics, all that was said of them in the Pentateuch was 
swept away as mythical and legendary. But by recent 
discoveries the Hittite empire is brought to light, and 
all that is stated and implied in the sacred Scriptures 
respecting them is more than verified. In the records 



Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures 41 

eighteenth 

of the ^jjjflB^^tigJ^h dynasty of Egypt is found the 
first mention of the Hittites outside of the Pentateuch. 
Thothmes III. is said "to -have received tribute from 
'the land of the Hittites/ " "The Tel-el- Amarna rec- 
ords, dating from the time of Amenophis III. and IV., 
of the same dynasty, contain more than thirty refer- 
ences to these peoples." 1 With these Hittites, Eameses 
II. made his famous treaty in the twenty-first year of his 
reign, which reads, "He shall be my ally; he shall be 
my friend ; I will be his ally ; I will be his friend ; for- 
ever." 

The Hittites are known to have been a literary people, 
but their language was remarkably different from the 
languages of the nations by which they were surrounded 
and with whom they held intercourse. The Tel-el- 
Amarna tablets locate these people originally in the 
Taurus Mountains, and perhaps in Cappadocia. Their 
inscriptions and sculptures thus far discovered, show 
that their power and influence extended as far west as 
Lydia, in Asia Minor, and southward to Hamath, and 
that they were a distinct people from eight hundred to 
a thousand years. Their inscriptions are peculiar and 
varied, and at present we know not how to translate 
them, but some day the Hittite records will tell their 
story to the modern world as now do the hieroglyphics 
of Egypt. 

From all that has been gathered from the monuments 
thus far, it is quite evident that the Hyksos ruled Egypt 
when Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph entered that country, 
and that their dominion there was brought to a close by 

1 The Monuments and the old Testament, chap. 22, page 263. 



42 Apologetics 

Thothmes III. and his successors. The author of "The 
Monuments and the Old Testament" says 1 : "In survey- 
ing the whole sweep of discoveries in the historical line, 
one may well be amazed at the galaxy of characters now 
drawn up to view. Beginning back at the fourteenth 
chapter of Genesis, we find evidences of the existence of 
the leader, Chedorlaomer, of the great Elamite cam- 
paign against the cities of the plain. The probabilities 
of a Hyksos domination in Eg} T pt when Abraham and 
•Joseph reached the Nile land are increasing with each 
new Egyptian discovery touching this period. The pos- 
session at Gizeh Museum of the mummy of the Pharaoh 
of the oppression, Eameses II., and a tablet of the time 
of Mineptah II., bearing the name, 'Israel/ add great 
vividness to the bondage of Israel in Egypt. Portraits 
of some of the Canaanitish people show us the kind of 
soldiers that disputed with Joshua the occupation of the 
Promised Land. Shishak's portrait of his captives from 
Canaan bears evidence on the face of it of the verity of 
the Kings' record of that event. The Moabite stone tells 
us that Mesha, of Moab (II. Kings 3:4), was no less a 
king than represented by the compiler of Kings. The 
record of Shalmaneser II. bears testimony to the exist- 
ence of Ahab, of Ben-hadad, and Hazael, of Damascus, 
and of 'Jehu son of Omri.' Tiglath-Pileser III. has left 
most valuable documents, in which he mentions Azariah 
(Uzziah) and Ahaz, of Judah, and Menahem, Pekah, 
and Hoshea, of Israel, and Eezin, of Damascus. Sargon 
II. describes his capture of Samaria, and of Ashdod. 
Sennacherib's records are full of facts regarding his il- 

» Page 293. 



Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures 43 

lustrious campaign of 701 B. C, where we find Hezekiah 
mentioned by name, the siege of Lachish pictured on his 
walls, and the amount of tribute paid the invader. Esar- 
haddon and Asurbanipal both mention in their list of 
tributaries Manasseh, of Judah. The overthrow of 
Nineveh, pictured in Nahum, is attested by a small in- 
scription of Nabonidus. The policy of Nebuchadnezzar, 
and his administrative ability, are evident in his own 
records. The annals of Nabonidus and of Cyrus picture 
the fall of Babjdon and the governmental policy of 
Cyrus outlined in the Old Testament. Belshazzar is seen 
to be the son and coregent of Nabonidus, the last Sem- 
itic king of Babylon. The construction of the palace 
of Susa is found to correspond in every important respect 
with the descriptions of the Book of Esther. In brief, we 
now have several new and corroborative chapters of his- 
tory as one immediate result of the decipherment of the 
new documents dug out of the earth within the last half 
century." 

It matters but little whether we look to the land of the 
Pharaohs, to the wilderness of wanderings, to the plains 
of Moab, to the ancient city of the great king, to the 
archives of Nineveh, or to the record of Babylon, the 
same unequivocal testimony comes from all, to the au- 
thenticity of the sacred record. 

And now having somewhat discussed the authenticity 
of the Scriptures, we close with the words of Bishop 
Butler : "These observations are, I think, just, and the 
evidence referred to in them real, though there may be 
people who will not accept of such imperfect informa- 
tion from Scripture. Some, too, have not integrity and 



44 Apologetics 

regard enough for the truth to attend to evidence, which 
keeps the mind in doubt, perhaps perplexity, and which 
is much of a different sort from what they expected. 
And it plainly requires a degree of modesty and fair- 
ness beyond what every one has for a man to say, not 
to the world, but to himself, that there is a real appear- 
ance of somewhat of great weight in this matter, though 
he is not able to thoroughly satisfy himself about it ; but 
it shall have its influence upon him, in proportion to 
its appearing reality and weight. It is much easier, and 
more readily falls in with the negligence, presumption, 
and willfulness of the generality, to determine at once, 
with a decisive air, that there is nothing in it. The preju- 
dices arising from that absolute contempt and scorn with 
which their evidence is treated in the world, I do not 
mention. For what, indeed, can be said to persons who 
are weak enough in their understandings to think this 
any presumption against it; or, if they do not, are yet 
weak enough in their temper to be influenced by such 
prejudices upon such a subject ?" 



Relation of 



CHAPTEE III. 
Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. 

1. Having discussed the authenticity of the Scrip- 
tures somewhat, we now proceed to consider the inspira- 
tion of their authors. The relation existing between 
these two topics is such that much that has been said on 
the former is equally applicable to the latter, for the one inspiration 
subject involves the other. The history of the revela- Ji C ^y then " 
tion of God's will to man shows that the manner of its 
delivery was not as human reason would have concluded 
it would be. 

(1) Eeason would have said, it will be given immedi- 
ately, not mediately ; not universally, but to individuals ; 
not partially, but completely; decidedly, not demon- 
strably ; at once, not progressively. Seldom did God re- 
veal himself in a like manner to different persons, and Manner &J 

r which God 

scarcely ever twice in the same way to the same person, spake to 

In Eden, his voice was heard in the cool of the day Man - 
(Gen. 3: 8) ; to Noah he spake by intuition, or inward 
utterance ; to Abraham by angels, visions, and by a burn- 
ing lamp ; to Moses by an angel in the burning bush and 
by lightning and thunder; to Jacob by a dream — a lad- 
der was let down from the skies — and by a wrestle with 
the angel of God; to his chosen people by dreams and 
by his prophets. (I. Sam. 28 : 6.) Then came a cessa- 
tion of a period of four hundred years, from Malachi 

45 



46 



Apologetics 



Five 

Theories of 
Inspiration. 



Dictation or 
Mechanical 
Theory* 



Dynamical 
Theory 



to the Advent, when God, in the person of his Son, ap- 
peared among men to reveal his will complete, and to 
cpen forever the gates of eternal day by the descent of 
the Holy Spirit. 

Such has been somewhat of the order in which God 
made his revelations, and the sixty-six books already 
mentioned contained record of these revelations. But it 
is not the purpose in this treatise to give a history of the 
doctrine of inspiration as it developed in the church, 
but the student is referred to Schaff and Herzog 1 for 
that information. While the Holy Scriptures themselves 
lay claim to inspiration, they contain no specific defini- 
tion of that term, and hence the many theories enter- 
tained by believers. Xot less than five well-defined the- 
ories, often modified in a degree, have found adherents 
in almost every age of the church, which theories may 
be stated as follows : 

(a) The dictation or mechanical theory, which ob- 
tained in the early ages of the church, holds that every 
idea, sentence, word, letter, and even vowel point of the 
Scriptures had been dictated by the Holy Ghost. At the 
time of the Eef ormation, the human element in the in- 
spired writings seems to have been more fully recognized, 
but later, in the Protestant churches, it has been formu- 
lated into "an accurate theological dogina." 

(b) The dynamical theory is the second, and seems to 
have displaced in a degree the first theory. This holds 
that the sacred Scriptures were committed to writing 
under the guidance of, but not dictated by, the Holy 
Spirit. The writers were free to use their own language 



» S. & H., Vol. IL, page 1101. 



tion Theory 



Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures 47 

and adopt their own style. The truths were revealed, but 
the language was peculiar to the individuality of the 
writers. 

(c) The third theory is that of divine illumination. 
It dates from the days of the Jewish rabbis, who dis- niumlna- 
tinguished between the prophetic spirit, which inspired 
the law and the prophets, and the Holy Spirit, which 
enabled man to speak and write such words and sentences 
of holiness as do not transcend the faculties of men. Its 
advocates hold to the view of different degrees of inspira- 
tion just in proportion as the light of the divine Spirit 
quickened and illuminated the understanding of the sa- 
cred writers from the highest degree of splendor to the 
faintest glimmer of light. 

(d) There is also a fourth theory, which has many 
able advocates, such as Archdeacon Paley, Dr. Dod- 
dridge, Van Oosterzee, Baxter, Erasmus, Leclerc, F. W. 
Farrar, and Dr. Dorner; also, Alford, Calvin, and 
Lange. It is usually called the essential theory, as dis- 
tinguished from the plenary. Its formula is, "The Bible 
contains the word of God," but rejects as faulty that 
other formula, "The Bible is the word of God." The ad- 
vocates of this theory of inspiration, says Canon Farrar, 
"confine this inspiration to matters of doctrine, matters 
of morality, and, above all, to matters of faith." 

(e) The advocates of the four theories hold to this 
one theory in common, namely, that the Holy Scriptures 

are divinely inspired and infallible in matters of doc- jJJj!S^J on 
trine, morality, and faith. They also differ from a fifth 
theory, called "Ordinary Inspiration," in that they be- 
lieve it to be "an extraordinary, transcendant operation 



Essential 
Theory. 



48 



Apologetics 



Comparison 
of the 
Theories. 



Inspiration 
Defined. 



of the Holy Spirit," while the advocates of the ordinary- 
theory hold that in the action of the Holy Spirit, as ex- 
ercised in the inspiration of the Scriptures, there is no 
generic distinction from the ordinary operations of that 
Spirit upon the heart and intellect of true believers in 
all ages. 

Other points of difference among the above theories 
might be named, as well as their merits pointed out, but 
brevity forbids it in this connection. It will be safe, 
however, to say that while no one of them contains all of 
the truth on the subject of the inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures, no one of them is wholly destitute of some truth on 
the subject. As Dr. Sprecher has well said, "The true 
conception seems to be that the apostles had the same 
kind and the same degree of assistance in their written as 
in their oral instructions, and that they were as much 
required to use their natural powers and to avail them- 
selves of natural means of information in the former as 
in the latter; and that they did, on the other hand, as 
certainly in the former as in the latter, receive aid of any 
and every kind which might be necessary to give infalli- 
bility to their written as well as to their oral instruc- 
tions." 

2. Divine inspiration, then, may be denned: The 
Holy Spirit so moving, influencing, controlling, and us- 
ing the sacred writers as to make them his mediums 
through which to give a written revelation of his will 
to man of the plan of salvation, the ideas communicated 
being inspired, true in point of fact, but the writers be- 
ing left free to clothe those ideas in their own language, 
but so restricted by the Holy Spirit in the use of Ian- 



Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures 49 

guage as not to use words that would misrepresent those 
ideas. 

The sacred writers did not "speak as they were dic- 
tated to, but they 'spake as they were moved by the Holy 
Spirit.' " All that can be desired in the sacred narra- 
tive is certainty, and this we surely have in the Scrip- 
tures. The Bible is emphatically God's book, divine and 
infallible as a rule of morals, doctrines, and faith. It 
is addressed to human beings, human beings were em- 
ployed as the organs of its communication, and human 
language as the vehicle of its inspired thoughts; hence, 
His book must possess the variety of style and the mode 
of expression peculiar to the writers whom he inspired 
to write it, and the age in which they wrote. One thing 
must be kept ever before the mind, that while the "divine 
element in the inspired books does not destroy or shut out 
the human/' nevertheless, inspiration is a miracle, and 
in the language of an eminent divine, "the special mirac- 
ulous, divine influence in the Bible cannot consistently 
be denied by any who acknowledge the indestructibility 
of the Bible, and at the same time believe in a personal 
God/' For "as certainly as the creation of the world 
was a miracle, so certainly is the Bible the result of a 
miraculous influence." 

(1) As to the Old Testament Scriptures. 

(a) The authors of the Old Testament claim to be 
inspired. This is manifest in their writings by their old 
forms of expression : "The Lord spake by his servant," Testament 
or, "The word of the Lord came" ; also, by positive dec- inspiration. 
laration, "And he said, Hear now my words" (Num. 12 : 
6) ; again, "And the Lord spake unto Moses." Men were 
i 



50 Apologetics 

chosen as prophets : "And the Lord came . . . and 
called . . . Samuel. . . . And the Lord said 
to Samuel, Behold I will do," etc. (I. Sam. 3: 10, 11.) 
Also; "Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched 
my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have 
put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set 
thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms" ( Jer. 1 : 
9,10). 

(b) It is very clear that Christ and his apostles recog- 
nized the Old Testament as inspired, and regarded it 
with as much reverence as did the Jews. In all their 
arguments and disputations, the Jewish Scriptures were 
Inspiration the court of appeal. Christ said to the Jews, "Search 
° f 1 ? e 01d the Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal life ; 
Recognized and they are they which testify of me." "For had ye 

by J ?Sf ist believed Moses, ye would have believed me : for he wrote 
andtne ' J 

Apostles, of me." Again, "Jesus answered them, Is it not written 
in your law, I said, Ye are gods ?" He sometimes charged 
them with being ignorant of the Scriptures, "Ye do err, 
not knowing the Scriptures." His reply to Satan, when 
tempted, is very explicit, "It is written, Man shall not 
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth 
out of the mouth of God." Perhaps the most forceful 
word of our Lord to the point now under consideration 
was the following, which was uttered after his resur- 
rection, "These are my words which I spake unto you, 
while I was yet with you, how that all things must needs 
be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and 
the prophets, and the Psalms concerning me. Then 
opened he their mind, that they might understand the 
Scriptures." "Again another scripture saith, They shall 



Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures 51 

look on him whom they pierced." Thus the Christ, 
from the beginning to the end of his eventful ministry, 
in the wilderness of temptation, and even on the cross, 
as he lifted with his pierced hands empires from off 
their hinges and turned the currents of centuries from 
their deep-worn channels, ever and anon appealed to the 
Scriptures in the emphatic words, "Thus it is written," 
etc. 

(c) The apostles gave to the Old Testament a similar 
endorsement. Paul, in his second epistle to Timothy, 
says, "Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable 
for teaching," etc. This passage does not refer to all of 
our canonical books, as some have interpreted, but to the 
books of the Old Testament. St. Peter, in his second 
epistle, says, "No prophecy ever came by the will of man : 
but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy 
Ghost." The epistle to the Hebrews abounds in quota- 
tions from the Old Testament. "God, having of old 
times spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers 
portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these 
days spoken unto us in his Son." "Wherefore, even as 
the Holy Ghost saith, To-day if ye shall hear his voice, 
harden not your hearts, as in the provocation," etc. "He 
saith, Behold, the days~come, saith the Lord, that I will 
make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with 
the house of Judah," etc. All these quotations from the 
Hebrews are found in the Book of Psalms, except the 
last, which is from Jeremiah, and each passage repre- 
sents God as the speaker, and the same is true of every 
quotation throughout this epistle. 

Again, in the first epistle to the Corinthians, we read, 



Apologetics 



Jews of 
Christ's 
Day 

Regarded 
Old Testa- 
ment as 
Inspired. 



The New 
Testament 
Claims to be 
Inspired. 



"For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, 
and will bring to nothing the understanding of the pru- 
dent.*' Indeed, more than two hundred passages from 
the Old Testament which have been quoted by the au- 
thors of the New as of divine authority, might be here 
introduced, but it is not necessary. 

It may not, however, be amiss to state in this connec- 
tion, that the Jews in the day of Christ regarded the 
books of the Old Testament as divinely inspired, not 
only in respect to their doctrines, but also in everything 
that pertained to them. Josephus says, "They being 
only prophets that have written the original and earliest 
accounts of things, as they learned them from God him- 
self by inspiration." He adds, "But it is become natural 
to all Jews to esteem these books to contain divine doc- 
trines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, to be 
willing to die for them." 1 

(2) The inspiration of the New Testament is proved 
from its own testimony. The sacred writers insist upon 
and persist in the infallibility of their statements. St. 
Paul says, "Which things also we speak, not in words 
which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit 
teacheth." In the first epistle to the Thessalonians it is 
declared that "when ye received from us the word of 
message, even the word of God, ye accepted it not as the 
word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God.*" 

The spirit of prophecy was given to them. In I. Tim- 
othy we read, "But the Spirit saith expressly, that in 
later times some shall fall away from the faith," etc. 
This divine enduement claimed by the apostle was prom- 



Apion, Book I. 



Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures 53 

ised to them by our Lord. His words are, "And I will 
pray the Father, and he shall give yon another Com- 
forter, that he may be with yon for ever, even the Spirit 
of truth: whom the world cannot receive" (John 14: 
16, R. V.). This Comforter was to teach them and tes- 
tify of Christ: "But the Comforter, even the Holy 
Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall 
teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all 
that I said unto you." "But when the Comforter is come 
. . . even the Spirit of truth, ... he shall bear 
witness of me : and ye also bear witness, because ye have 
been with me from the beginning." In the sixteenth 
chapter of John the promise of a full and complete in- 
spiration is given: "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of 
truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth : for 
he shall not speak from himself ; but what things soever 
he shall hear, these shall he speak : and he shall declare 
unto you the things that are to come." Jesus, in speak- 
ing to his disciples of the coming persecution, cautioned 
them against being over-anxious about what they should 
say. "For," said he, "it is not ye that speak, but the 
Holy Ghost." It is manifest from these and many 
more passages that might be cited, that the promise of 
inspiration was made by Christ to his disciples, and also 
that the apostles claimed to be in the possession of the 
fulfillment of that promise while speaking and writing. 
3. It is most manifest, therefore, that each writer of 
the sacred Scriptures claimed that he was inspired to Each Writer 
write as he did, and that the communication was from of sacred 
God. This, also, was the light in which the church re- claims 
ceived and has held the Holy Scriptures and their au- inspiration. 



54 



Apologetics 



Proven by 

Character 
of the 
Contents. 



thors. There is a remarkable statement by Justin Mar- 
tyr respecting the spread of the gospel in his day, and 
also of the qualification of the men who wrote the Gos- 
pels, "There is not a nation either of Greek or barbarian, 
or of any other name, even of those who wander in tribes, 
and live in tents, amongst whom prayers and thanks- 
giving are not offered to the Father and Creator of the 
universe by the name of the crucified Jesus." 1 Justin 
Martyr wrote not more than thirty years after Pliny, and 
about one hundred and sixty years after the ascension. 
Irenseus, a disciple of Polycarp, declares, "The Scrip- 
tures were dictated by the Spirit of God, and that there- 
fore it is wickedness to contradict them, and sacrilegious 
to alter them." He also says, "The gospel was first 
preached, and afterwards, by the will of God, committed 
to writing, that it might be for time to come the founda- 
tion and pillar of our faith." 

Surely it was the intention of the writers of the Holy 
Scriptures and of our blessed Lord, also, that the church 
should receive and regard their sacred writings as having 
been dictated and rendered infallible by the Holy Spirit. 
Says Von Oosterzee, "He who will acknowledge in Scrip- 
ture no higher than a purely human character comes in 
collision, not only with our Lord's word and that of his 
witnesses, but also with the Christian consciousness of all 
ages." 2 

4. The nature of its contents and the unity of the 
boolc itself are proofs of its inspiration. 

(1) As we read the sacred pages of both the Old Testa- 



1 Dial cum Tryph. 

• Dogmatics, page 199. 



Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures 55 

ment and the New, we meet in the writers all the frail- 
ties and weaknesses of men of like passions with our- 
selves. Sometimes they are courageous and daring; at 
other times they betray a pitiable weakness and cow- 
ardice. At one time they speak and act like saints; at 
another foul blots appear upon their character, and we Writers of 
hear the shrill voice of an aged seer ring out the keen, JUJJwa' w!d 
cutting words, "Thou art the man." But amid all this imperfect, 
diversity of weakness and strength, it has, in truth, been 
said of these writers by Canon Farrar, "Nor has the wid- 
est learning and the acutest ingenuity of skepticism ever 
pointed to one complete and demonstrable error of fact 
or doctrine in the Old and New Testament." The same 
writer says : "Yet all this infinite diversity is, like the 
diversity of nature, merged in a yet more marvelous 
unity. Kings, prophets, warriors, historians, poets, ex- 
iles, shepherds, gatherers of sycamore fruit, fishermen, 
tax-gatherers, 'we do hear them speak in our tongues the 
wonderful works of God/ Whether we read the pas- 
sionate pleadings of an afflicted Chaldean noble or the 
Thythmic utterances of a great Mesopotamian sorcerer; 
whether it be the cynical confession of a sated worldling 
or the pathetic cry of a guilty and repentant king; 
whether it be the exultant thanksgiving for some splen- 
did deliverance or the impassioned denunciation of some 
intolerable wrong; whether it be the stately music of 
some gorgeous vision or the brief letter of an aged pris- 
oner recommending the forgiveness of an unprofitable 
slave, we feel that in these, there reigns throughout a di- 
vine coherency, an unbroken unity ; we feel that the long 
history is also a symbol and a prophecy ; that each writer 



56 Apologetics 

was but the instrument, often the wholly unconscious 
instrument, of purposes loftier than his own, and the 
utterer of language often deeper than he himself could 
understand ; we feel that in the Old Testament the New 
is prefigured; in the New the Old is fulfilled. From be- 
ginning to end we recognize the truth that though God 
is in all history, never had any nation a history so signifi- 
cant as that of this nation; none have ever known as 
these knew, or taught as these teach, the holiness of God 
and the majesty of man." 

(2) In this sacred book the student who pursues its 
Thought or P a S es mee ts with much that attracts and inspires the 
ideas of thoughtful. In the Old Testament, all that is grand and 
Denote sublime in the majesty of God as creator and ruler of a 

Inspiration, vast universe is portrayed. From the opening to the clos- 
ing sentence of the book the description is ever in keep- 
ing with the dignity of the subject. The inhabitants of 
all worlds wait with anxious eye turned to him as the 
God of providence. Back of the storm and behind the 
thundering, warring elements he sits, a being of infinite 
majesty, "not clearing the guilty, but merciful, long-suf- 
fering, and abundant in goodness and truth." 

In the New, Christ introduces him as "our Father 
which art in heaven." He who was once the God of 
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob is now 
the God of the whole human race. What was once the 
creed of a tribe is now the religion of the world. Sacri- 
fices, rites, and ceremonies, which, in the Old, typified 
something better to come, in the New are realized in 
the image of God, reflected from the human soul, which 
is the highest ideal of man and the crowning glory of 
God. 



Inspiration of the Holy /Scriptures 57 

Also, the marvelous purity of its teachings, its lofty 
ideal on the subject of morals, its clear, faithful delinea- 
tions of the effects of irreligion and profligacy, the cor- 
rectness of which is verified by our experience in this 
life ; also, the many truths winch it reveals, not discover- 
able by reason, such as a future life with rewards and 
punishments, immortality, the resurrection of the dead, 
and a future judgment, all of which are of the deepest 
and most abiding interest to us, and which, in their na- 
ture and tendency, elevate the thoughts and affections of 
men from things perishing to things spiritual and abid- 
ing, — all, all carry conviction to man that God speaks 
to him in this volume of his written word. TJie 

Of Jesus Christ, says Goethe, "I esteem the Gospels Faultless 
to be thoroughly genuine, for there shines forth from Christ set 
them the reflected splendor of a sublimity proceeding Forth in 
from the person of Jesus Christ of so divine a kind as Manifests 
only the divine could ever have manifested upon earth." 1 inspiration. 

"How petty," says Eousseau, "are the books of the 
philosophers, with all their pomp, compared with the 
Gospels ! Can it be that writings at once so sublime and 
so simple are the works of mere men? Can he whose 
life they tell, be of mere men ? Can he whose life they 
tell be himself no more than a mere man? . . . 
What a loftiness in his maxims, what profound wisdom 
in his words ! What presence of mind, what delicacy and 
aptness in his replies! What an empire over his pas- 
sions ! Where is the man, where is the sage, who knows 
how to act, suffer, and die without weakness and dis- 
play? . . . The Jews could never have struck this 

1 Conversations with Ekermann, III., 371 



58 Apologetics 

tone, or thought of this morality, and the gospel has 
characteristics of truthfulness so grand, so striking, so 
perfectly inimitable that their inventors would be even 
more wonderful than he whom they portray." 1 

As Jesus Christ is the only perfect, faultless life and 
the only worthy pattern of all the men who have lived, 
so the Bible is the only perfect book of all the books writ- 
ten. The spirit that it breathes is not the spirit of man, 
but the Spirit of God. It is strictly cosmopolitan in its 
spirit, and belongs to every age and is adapted to every 
race of men. It is as broad as the family of mankind, 
and is as emphatically God's book as the race is God's 
offspring. 

*Emile, I.,4; 109, HI. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Miracles — Their Credibility and Intent. 

1. Man is capable of gaining knowledge and arriving 
at the truth. This he does in two ways : the one by ex- 
perience, the other by observation, or the experience of 
others. The former is expensive and slow; the latter 
quick and cheap. The foolish learn only in the school of 
experience, but the wise in both. Also, two methods are 
open to him by which he may arrive at a knowledge of 
the truth. The one is by the exercise of the human f ac- o^aJ^g 
ulties, observation, intuition, reflection, reason, judg- Knowledge. 
ment ; the other is by a direct supernatural communica- 
tion from Heaven, of facts that could not be obtained 
by any known operation of the human mind. In such a 
communication or series of communications the sacred 
Scriptures claim to have originated. Two facts should 
ever be kept in mind by the Bible student. The one is, 
the Scriptures claim that the communication was from 
God. The other is, that they claim man was the recorder 
of the communication; that is, God communicated the 
Scriptures, man recorded them, therefore the recording 
was human, the supernatural communication divine. 
Now, the authenticity, both of the Old and the New 
Testament, and their inspiration having been established, 
the next step to be taken is the examination of their con- 
tents. 



60 



Apologetics 



Old 

Testament 
Promises 
an Am- 
bassador. 



Miracles 
Were 
Christ's 
Credentials. 



Definition 
of Miracle. 



The church believes and teaches that the claims set 
forth in the sacred Scriptures are true and of divine au- 
thority. In these Scriptures one of the most significant 
features is, that they profess to teach a divinely -revealed 
religion expressly for the betterment of mankind and the 
glory of God. This religious system is called Chris- 
tianity. In the Old Testament, almost from its opening 
pages to its close, reference is had to an ambassador to 
be sent from God, who should "redeem Israel." In the 
New Testament, constant and grand reference is had 
to Jesus Christ as the Saviour and Teacher, sent from 
God, of whom "Moses in the law, and the prophets did 
write," "Jesus the Son of God." In turn, Jesus persist- 
ently appealed to the miracles he performed as the evi- 
dence of his divine commission. His miracles, he in- 
sisted, were his credentials from the court of Heaven of 
his divine ambassadorship. "The works that I do" was 
his constant appeal. "Go your way and tell John, 
. . . the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, 
the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead 
are raised up." Such were some of his miracles — work 
of a superhuman character, and altogether outside of the 
natural course of things, and this also may be said of all 
the miracles recorded, both in the Old and the New Tes- 
tament. They are superhuman acts, and are not in- 
cluded nor accounted for in the natural course of things. 

2. A miracle, then, is an event which nature's forces 
cannot produce, taking place in connection with a person 
professing to be sent from God, and intended to be the 
proof of his divine mission. The occurrence is purely 
supernatural, and must be referred to God, the author 



Miracles— I 1 heir Credibility and Intent 61 

of nature. It is an act the like of which has never oc- 
curred by natural causation, and never will occur b} r nat- 
ural causation. An acute thinker says, "A miracle is a 
fact the like of which has never occurred or ever will 
occur, but for the same purpose." What are the naked 
facts in the case of miracles? Since the world be- 
gan it was not known that a deaf man at a word re- 
ceived his hearing, or that a man actually dead four 
days and stank, at a word, in a moment, stood up in 
vigor and activity ; or that a man born blind, by having 
his eyes anointed with spittle and clay, instantly received 
his sight; or that, at a word, the tempest was hushed 
and the sea calmed; or that, by the stretching of a rod 
over a mighty river, the waters rolled back and a whole 
nation passed over dry-shod. These and like events the 
Scriptures affirm on different occasions and for specific 
purposes, without precedent, and unparalleled, have 
taken place, all of which are miraculous. But because 
a miracle is a supernatural event, it is not to be inferred 
that the event is something not manifest, a something 
that cannot be known and apprehended by man. 

3. To distinguish between true miracles and a class 
of occurrences recorded in the Bible, which stand mid- 
way between the miracles and the ordinary occurrences Miracles 

of nature is vital; and it is readilv admitted that the Distin - 

J guished 
line which separates is not well defined. Owing to a from Ex- 
failure upon the part of the apologist to make the needed t raordmar y 
. . r r o Occurrences 
distinction, not unfrequently he has put a dangerous of Nature. 

weapon into the hand of his antagonist. It may be said, 
in truth, a sparseness of miracles obtains throughout the 
Scriptures far beyond what men ordinarily would ex- 



62 Apologetics 

pect; and yet they are of a sufficient number to accom- 
plish the purpose for which they were introduced. The 
true miracles performed were not to gratify vain curi- 
osity, nor to secure some selfish interest for the per- 
former, but only to benefit others. In the marvelous life 
of Jesus, in his hunger in the wilderness, thirsting at 
the well of Jacob, in Sychar, pressed by his enemies, 
betrayed by his friend, scourged, spat upon, and cruci- 
fied at last, notwithstanding, he was the power behind 
and above nature, and controlled her forces; and while 
he could have called to his Father, who would have 
put more than twelve legions of angels at his disposal, 
he performed no miracle in his behalf; all were in 
the interest of others. Now, such occurrences in his 
life after his resurrection, as appearing in the house 
with his disciples, "the doors having been shut," and 
his walk and his talk with the two on their way to 
Emmaus; also, his appearing to his disciples at the 
Sea of Tiberias, as well as some peculiar occurrences 
which transpired prior to his crucifixion, such as his es- 
cape from the multitude at Nazareth, and his act of rid- 
ding the temple of the money-changers, seem to be un- 
necessarily placed in the category of his miracles. In- 
deed, it is doubtful, to say the least, if the recorders of 
these occurrences in their Master's eventful life regarded 
them as miraculous, but two have often found their 
place there by false interpretation. Now, there is a class 
of events which stood midway between the class of oc- 
currences just mentioned and clear, unquestioned mir- 
acles, such as the Christ's resurrection, opening the eyes 
of the blind, the burning bush, and Elijah's calling fire 



Credibility 



Miracles— Their Credibility and Intent 63 

out of heaven upon his altar at Mt. Carmel. Such by 
some are called mediate miracles. In this class of events, 
there is both a miraculous application and adaptation of 
the forces of nature to them. They are occurrences pro- 
duced by natural laws supernaturally applied. In this 
class is included such events as the Noachian deluge, 
Joseph sold into Egypt, destruction of Sodom and Go- 
morrah, crossing of the Eed Sea by the Israelites, and 
others recorded both in the Old and the New Testament. 
Then, with this distinction before the mind relative to 
the events unequivocally miraculous, and the mediate 
miracles recorded in the Scriptures, and, holding each of Miracles. 
in its own category, we proceed to discuss the credibility 
of miracles in general. 

We again state in a broader sense what we have already 
implied in part, namely, that those who are reputed in 
the Scriptures to have claimed that their commission was 
from God always appealed to the miracles which they 
performed as sufficient evidence. Moses did this at the 
court of Pharaoh, so did Elijah on Mt. Carmel, Christ 
also did the same thing, and when he commissioned his 
disciples he promised like power from the Father upon 
them. 

It will not be questioned by well informed men but 
that at, or about the time of the birth of Christ, an ex- 
pectation widespread obtained that an event of that char- 
acter was about to occur. That when he arrived at man- 
hood or about the age of thirty, he drew about him a 
small band of men, Jews, and that to them he actually the Time 
professed to have come from heaven, the spirit world, and Advent 
that he really and truly was God's ambassador and the 



Messiah 
Expected at 



64 Apologetics 

bearer of important messages from his Father to the 
world. That to confirm his disciples and others in the 
belief of his divine ambassadorship, he gave sight to men 
who were born blind, and, by a word, raised the dead to 
life, and other like superhuman acts, and also that he 
endowed his disciples with a like power. That subse- 
quently he was crucified, dead, buried, and that on the 
third day he rose from the dead. The claim that his 
disciples set up in the gospel was, that it had brought life 
and immortality to light through the gospel, and that 
by his resurrection Christ had abolished death. The 
claim rested on the belief that he had appeared and 
talked with a body of men at different times after his 
resurrection, and men, too, who had not previously be- 
lieved that the Christ himself was to die and again rise. 
These men, and especially his disciples, accepted his 
resurrection as a demonstration of the fact, first, that 
there is life after death; and, second, that he was the 
Christ, the Son of the living God — God's ambassador, 
Disciples man's Saviour. 

Accepted These men who were the eye-witnesses of Jesus before 

Evidence of J 

Resurrec- and after his resurrection, believed that he was the first- 
fruits of a system introduced from heaven among men, 
which, when perfected, would embrace all earth's sorrow- 
ing children, who were united to their Master by a living 
faith in the same glorious immortality that was mani- 
fested in their risen Lord. Mark the emphasis of Paul 
on the resurrection of Christ and the importance he at- 
tached to it. "If Christ hath not been raised, then is 
our preaching vain, your faith also is vain. Yea, and 
we are found false witnesses of God; because we wit- 



tion. 



Miracles— Their Credibility and Intent 65 

nessed of God that he raised up Christ : whom he raised 
not up, if so be that the dead are not raised. For if the 
dead are not raised, neither hath Christ been raised : and 
if Christ hath not been raised, your faith is vain; ye are 
yet in your sins." 

His resurrection was admitted as a matter of fact, as 
was also his personal ascension, in the presence of many, 
up into heaven. These events did not occur in secret, 
but openly, as the record states that he appeared to as 
many as five hundred persons at one time, after his res- 
urrection. But the objector says : "The guardsmen who 
watched the sepulcher in which the body of Christ was 
laid said, "His disciples came by night and stole him 
away while we slept." If they were asleep, how did they tlon a Proof 
know what became of the body in the tomb they were of Christ's 
guarding ? The record says these guardsmen were bribed dorship and 
to make this false statement. But from the very fact of Life after 
of the disciples' belief in the resurrection of their Lord 
they put it into history, and that history is with us now; 
they braved scorn, insult, derision, hardship, poverty, 
torture, and death itself that the gospel of their Lord 
might be preached and the commission he gave to them 
be carried out. They received it not only as a matter-of- 
fact demonstration of his ambassadorship from God the 
Father, but also as a proof conclusive of life after death. 
And it may be here stated, that unless we allow that 
Christ rose from the dead the world has no physical 
proof in favor of immortality, but to admit the fact, a 
future state becomes more than probable — it becomes 
possible, an established fact in history. 

The proofs of revelation are sufficiently strong to pro- 



66 Apologetics 

duee belief, were it not for a supposed presumption 

which to many minds seems to rest against them; that 

Presump- i s a supposed presumption against miracles, on the 

tion against 

Miracles ground that it would not be scientific to admit their pos- 

^ s . no * sibility, on the one hand; and, on the other, even if they 

Scientific* 

were possible, it would be unphilosophical to admit that 

they could be proved. This presumption rests on the as- 
sumption that an event produced not by a natural law 
would be an action without a cause. This is a miscon- 
ception, and is the result of holding a false notion rela- 
tive to natural law. Natural law is God's will exercised 
in nature, as is manifested in established sequences of 
natural phenomena. Thus God is the author and cause 
of all natural law, which is the exertion of his will over 
nature, primarily to accomplish his own purposes. 
When a miracle, then, occurs, it is the result of the ex- 
ertion of the will of God and author of nature to accom- 
plish a specific purpose, which primarily is his own. 
Thus miracles are, in this sense,^not out of accord with 
nature, but in accord with her, the same Creator and 
Judge acting in both, and the Author both of natural 
and supernatural phenomena. 

1. In a miracle, the end to be accomplished is special ; 
a dead man is to be brought to life, a rod is to become a 
serpent. It is for a specific purpose, God signing his 
ambassador's credentials. Pharaoh is to be convinced 
that Moses is God-sent. Every miracle in the Bible is 
special, and every purpose is specific, but all tending to 
the accomplishing of a general, grand purpose, namely, 
to establish the divine authority of revelation and its 
religion among men. 



Miracles — I 1 heir Credibility and Intent 67 

But, it is said, nature is uniform in all her works, 
and miracles are out of accord with that uniformity. 
That is true only in a sense, that is, in so far as human 0b j ection 
experience and observation go. But no man who is Based on 
acquainted with the best science of the closing decade u^^ty 
of this best century of the ages would venture to say 
that nature has always been uniform in the sense the 
objector uses the term, — that the sun, in the infinite 
sweep of eternity that is past, always rose and set as it 
now does, and that the moon and the stars always shone 
out as they now do ; that the first oak-tree sprang from 
an acorn, which grew on an oak-tree, as acorns now do. 
The material universe has not been from everlasting 
time; science says it had its beginning in time and will 
end in time, and thus declares creation the miracle of 
miracles. Man was not always an inhabitant of his pres- 
ent home — this earth. On this subject science speaks 
out with no uncertain sound. Geological science shows 
clearly that our planet was once a molten mass and not 
capable of sustaining any forms of life. This truth 
God has recorded in the rock-written history of the dead 
ages. Man as well as other forms of life had a begin- 
ning in time. No scientific man will claim that his 
advent here was in accord with the present order of gen- 
eration. In the language of modern science, "Our mod- 
ern knowledge enables us to look back almost with certi- 
tude to the time when there was nothing but gravitating 
matter and its potential energy throughout the expanse, 
. . . and thus forming in time separate solar or stel- 
lar systems. We have thus reached the beginning as 
well as the end of the present visible universe, and have 



68 Apologetics 

come to the conclusion that it began in time and will 
in time come to an end." 1 Says the same scientific 
writer: "Now we believe that an extension of purely 
scientific logic desires us to receive as quite certain the 
occurrence of two events which are as incomprehensible 
as any miracle. These are : the introduction of visible 
matter and energy and visible living things into the uni- 
verse. Furthermore, we are led by scientific analogy to 
regard the agency in virtue of which these two astound- 
ing events were brought about as an intelligent agency, 
an agency whose choice of the time for action is deter- 
mined by considerations similar in their nature to those 
which influence a human .being when he chooses the 
proper moment for the accomplishment of his purposes." 

If, then, it be true that science acknowledges an event 
so stupendous as that of creation, for no Bible miracle 
is greater and further removed from the natural course 
of events, how can the objector on scientific grounds ob- 
ject to the Christian miracles? Is it not clear that to 
admit the miracle of creation not only sweeps from the 
field every form of supposed scientific presumption 
against miracles, but also removes the discussion regard- 
ing miracles wholly from the domain of science ? And, 
too, for the very best of reasons, namely, that pure scien- 
tific logic admits the occurrence of events equally as 
great and none the less supernatural. 

2. There is a principle in nature that seems to be at 

variance at least with one of nature's laws. Gra vita- 
Lite a ■» i • 
Higher Law tion would bind all matter to the earth as with a chain, 

Gravitation but life breaks tne chain. Life in the lily, in the very 

1 Unseen Universe, page 128. 



Miracles— Their Credibility and Intent 69 

teeth of the law of gravitation, which would draw it to 
the earth, pushes it up until it throws open its corolla 
to the bright sunlight, a thing of beauty. Life in the 
bird bids defiance to gravity, and at pleasure it rises from 
the earth and swims in the air. In a creature whose 
knowledge and experience were limited to bodies with- 
out life and always in a state of rest, the information 
that there is a principle of life, and such and such are 
some of its phenomena, would cause, doubtless, many 
false presumptions to arise, not only against the prin- 
ciple itself, but against the phenomena in particular. 
All these presumptions would spring from his limited 
experience and rest on his lack of knowledge in each 
particular case; but experience in the world of activity 
and observation on the course of nature would soon dis- 
sipate all his false presumptions. Just so with man 
relative to miracles ; every supposed presumption against 
them rests on his limited experience and lack of knowl- 
edge of facts pertaining to the universe. When St. Paul 
spoke to the Greeks of the "resurrection of the dead," 
"some laughed/' but not one of the eye-witnesses of the 
resurrection of Lazarus or the raising of the widow's son 
either laughed or questioned the reality of the fact; at 
least, neither friend nor foe recorded anything to the 
contrary. It is so with all the recorded miracles of the 
Bible; no eye-witness to them, either friend or foe, 
questioned their reality. True, some attempted to ac- 
count for them in some way other than by divine power, 
and thus unwittingly admitted the reality of the events 
in question. 

3. The objection to miracles seems to imply that the 



70 Apologetics 

God not infinite Father may not change the course of his provi- 
5°t? db7 d ence other than man has experienced it to be, for the 
by Fate. benefit of his children. Surely, the Almighty Will is not 
bound either by nature or by fate. We admit that the 
earthly parent may change his course of government in 
his family, and he really does, sometimes by giving more, 
sometimes by withholding knowledge from his offspring. 
To recognize a like freedom and disposition in the in- 
finitely wise and infinitely good Father is all that is 
necessary to admit of miracles. God is not limited in 
his resources, but keeps his hand on all his works. Man's 
difficulty seems to lie in the fact that his own knowledge 
is finite and his experience- very limited, and that he is 
unwilling to concede to God what he knows himself not 
to possess. The human being who has no knowledge of 
the growth of vegetation, who has never seen a forest or 
witnessed the building of a house or the erection of any 
other building, who has no knowledge of the lumber 
out of which the house even in which he was born and 
reared was constructed, or of any other building, or 
of the manner in which that timber grew and the 
process by which it was manufactured into lumber 
and then constructed into a house, — if, I say, such a 
human being were to be placed in the great forests of 
the State of Washington, and to comprehend, as he 
looked upon and marveled at the growth of the forest, 
that this was one of the steps taken by the Creator of 
the universe toward erecting a house like to that in 
which he was born, would it be less a marvel to him 
than to be told that at a word a blind man had 
received his sight? Or, again, as he looked upon the 



Miracles— Their Credibility and Intent 71 

woodsman felling the trees, and the lumberman with his 
great saws ripping the trees into boards, planks, shingles, 
and scantlings, if he were told that these men were en- 
gaged in erecting houses and barns and building cities, 
would there not arise in his mind at every stage in the 
processes thus far named persumptions against the 
building of a house ? It is only when the end is attained, 
the structure complete, that the human mind can trace 
back, step by step, the different processes that led up to 
its completion. 

It will be readily admitted that, even if man had 
knowledge beforehand that a revelation was to be given 
him from heaven, he in no wise could determine what 
the nature of that revelation would be, what would be 
the degrees of its evidence, whether it would be oral or 
written, whether it would be communicated from God 
direct to man or by angels, or by both; or what would 
be the nature of its evidence, whether it would be ac- 
companied by miracles or not; or whether it would be 
given alike to all men at one and the same time; or 
whether it would be given through a series of years. 
The truth is, he could conclude nothing definitely be- 
forehand about it. He might conjecture many things 
respecting it, but his conjectures would be as likely false 
as true. But there is one fact in revelation which 
stands out clear and definite, namely, its similarity to 
the whole scheme of nature. Nature's great truths are 
discovered only by those who seek after them, and her 
deep problems solved only by the patient, faithful inves- 
tigator. Just so in revelation, doubts are dispelled, and 
the truth becomes apparent only to the earnest truth- 



72 Apologetics 

seeker in God's Word; for it is a fact that, inasmuch 
as man is made a partaker of the divine nature, and 
that the ideas that develop in the human reason are, at 
least in part, copies of the archetype that dwells in the 
divine mind, he may rise to the apprehension and recog- 
nition of the immutable and eternal principles of right- 
eousness, and by communing with that which is divine 
— the Word of God — he may be inducted into, and made 
acquainted with the deep things of God. 

The particular thing in nature is order, the greatest 

principle is benevolence — the universal adaptation of all 

things to the happiness of sentient beings, the supply 

Nature °f a H wants, the alleviation of all suffering. The 

orderly grand harmony and order that obtains in nature is 
Under Law. 

marvelous, and one of the great lessons which it teaches 

is, that its Author must be a God of order. One king- 
dom stands above another — the animal, the vegetable, 
the mineral. Each has its separate departments, the 
one not infringing upon the other. The seasons, in 
order, come and go — spring, summer, autumn, and 
winter. These, in turn, and in their order, give sec- 
onds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. 
What order, what strange regularity ! And all, too, in 
the interest of benevolence, happiness, and the allevia- 
tion of the sufferings and wants of God's creatures. 
So marvelous is this order, this uniformity, "that the 
laws of the physical universe are resolvable into numer- 
ical relations, and therefore capable of being repre- 
sented by mathematical formulae." This fact was dis- 
covered and taught by Plato. 

In the sacred Scriptures a like order obtains, while 



Miracles — Their Credibility and Intent 73 

the same end — benevolence — is kept in view. It opens 
its pages with the history of creation, the fall of man scriptures 
ensues, then follows his redemption, and the books close orderly and 
with his glorification. Step by step in universal order, enevo en • 
truth after truth is unfolded, book after book is writ- 
ten, until the whole ground of human religious need 
is covered. It not only lays bare the world's great sore 
and sorrow, but definitely states the cause, and points 
out the only remedy for its cure. Every line that it 
contains, either directly or indirectly, was written to 
meet the wants and alleviate the sorrows of man. Like 
nature, the particular thing in it is order, the greatest 
principle in it is benevolence — the universal adapta- 
tion of all things to the happiness of sentient beings, 
the supply of all want, the alleviation of all suffering. 

The sacred Scriptures have a single aim — one end 
in view, which is never lost sight of; it is never ob- 
scured, never darkened. There is no turning aside in 
by-paths, or words used to darken council. But, like Tne Aim of 

the rush of a mighty river to the sea, it holds its way scripture 

. . is the Moral 

steadily to the goal. This single aim, this goal of the perfection 

Scriptures is the moral elevation and perfection of man. of Man * 

""It aims and it tends in all its doctrines, precepts, and 

promises, to rescue men from the power of moral evil; 

to unite them to God by filial love, and to one another 

in the bonds of brotherhood; to inspire them with a 

philanthropy as meek and unconquerable as that of 

Christ; and to kindle intense desire, hope, and pursuit 

of celestial and immortal virtue." This unvarnished, 

aye, this untarnished singleness of design which runs 

through their religious records is no mean evidence of 



74: Apologetics 

itself that it is superhuman. It is without a parallel 
in the world's literature. 

Xow let the chapter be closed with an illustration; 
and while it is true that the figures used and the com- 
parisons drawn do not always meet the case in hand, 
it is not because there is an intent to deceive on the 
one hand, or that the case to be illustrated is without 
truth in point of fact on the other; but, rather, it grows 
out of human limitations. 

Suppose that, for untold generations, at a given sea- 
son of the year, a peculiar class of creatures appeared 
in our world; that they had the capacity for taking 
food and drink, and that both were necessary for their 
sustenance, but that there was no food or drink such 
as they needed, provided in nature for them; or, sup- 
pose that food and drink by nature had been provided, 
but that they had neither instinct nor reason to direct 
them to the bounties provided by nature, nor did they 
know how to use it when it was given to them; that 
they, further, did not know or perceive the difference 
between land and water, day and night. ]STow they 
plunge into the stream and are destroyed, others of 
them walk over ledges and fall over precipices and are 
dashed to pieces, while others, again, perish on the 
plains for want of nourishment. For generations the 
same strange creatures have been coming, and still 
they come, only to wander in distress, to famish, and 
to die. You may turn over every page of written his- 
tory and you will find no record of such creatures as 
we have supposed, and then you may go to the records 
of the rock-written history of the dead ages, and there, 



Miracles — Their Credibility and Intent 75 

too, you will search for them in vain. Nature's God 
has never brought into being a creature for whose wants 
he has not made ample provision. "He feeds the young 
ravens when they cry." 

Now, let this illustration be applied to man as he 
really is. Take into account the dignity of his nature 
and the place he holds among earth's creatures. How 
much superior he is to the creation by which he is sur- 
rounded. He alone of earth's creatures is endowed with 
reason; all below him, with animal sense. Take into 
account, too, the difference between mere animal sense 
and the infinite faculties of a being such as man is. 
Now add to all this, that man, the creature to be com- 
pared, not only has the capacity to acquire knowledge, 
but also to cultivate and develop his faculties, reason, 
memory, and affection, and that he really does this in 
accord with a natural law of his being, and all, too, 
without any knowledge whatever of a future life. Now 
suppose that when he has thus reached his intellectual 
zenith, with all his aspirations for an endless life in 
tune to the most exquisite and sound thoughts and feel- 
ings, amid his joys and his sorrows, his pleasures and 
his pains, as he stands upon this earth as it rolls in ma- 
jestic silence through the mighty void, with death and 
decay all around, and in the presence of an open grave, 
there comes no voice from beyond the tomb to assure him 
that he shall live after death — to assure him that death 
does not end all. This really is man's condition if the 
Bible is not true ; and would not such a state of human 
nature be more deplorable, more sad, more mournful, 
and more out of accord and at war with the divine good- 



76 Apologetics 

ness than any disaster that could at all befall animal 
nature? The Author of nature has provided amply 
for all the physical wants of his creatures, including 
man. If he has thus made provision for the lower na- 
ture of man, is it reconcilable with his divine goodness 
if he has left unprovided man's higher, spiritual na- 
ture ? Man's greatest need to secure his happiness here, 
and to hold him to a worthy life, is an unmistakable 
communication from the infinite Father that death 
does not end all, that the soul is immortal, and how he 
must live to secure the divine favor. This the Holy 
Scriptures claim, and Christians believe them to be; 
and God Almighty's seal to his book is the miracles 
that were performed by those whom he sent as his am- 
bassadors to make such a needed and unmistakable 
communication. 



CHAPTER V. 
Miracles — Continued. 

Two things at least are now manifest : first, that the 
Founder of Christianity and his disciples claimed to _ 
perform miracles, and that the miracles which they Disciples 
performed were the evidence of their divine commis- Regarding 
sion; and, second, that the people believed the miracles Miracles? 
thus wrought to be genuine. Now were the disciples 
and people deceived or not ? is a very important inquiry. 

1. No well informed person will question the intel- 
ligence of the age in which Jesus was born, nor the 
general enlightenment that obtained in his native land 
at the time of his nativity. The age of Greek litera- 
ture had culminated and was passing, or had passed; was 
the Latin empire then ruled the world, and Roman lit- I QteUi sent. 
erature was in its zenith. The books of the Old Testa- 
ment were complete; all the Apocryphal literature of 
the Hebrews had already been written, and their wisest 
doctors and priests then held sway in the Sanhedrim. 
The world's greatest poets had lived, written, and 
passed away — Homer, David, Hesiod, iEschylus, Hor- 
ace, and Virgil. Philosophy had already swept over 
the entire domain of human thought, and some of the 
closest thinkers representing any age had already lived, 
and the world was in the possession of their investiga- 
tions — Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, the ora- 
tor, statesman, and author. 

77 



78 Apologetics 

At the time of the advent, the two popular systems 
of philosophy were the skeptical and the Epicurean. 
The former turned religion into a jest and denied the 
possibility of arriving at truth, and placed the mind 
on a sea of doubt; the latter placed human happiness 
in ease, which ultimately led to, and taught that wan- 
ton luxury and a supreme indifference, both to the pres- 
ent and the future, secured the highest good. There 
was another system, the Stoical. This maintained that 
virtue was the highest good. It certainly had many 
virtues, and maintained some noble principles; but its 
cold indifference to human sorrow and suffering, its 
abnegation of human want, its stern self-reliance, and 
extravagant exaggerations of its own virtues placed it 
in strange contrast with, and in opposition to the whole 
genius of Christianity. 

At this time, also, flourished the Jewish Alexandrian 
philosophy. It consisted in blending the doctrines of 
Plato with Jewish theology, and was known as theo- 
sophic or theologic. All these systems, after so many 
Alexan- ages of patient thought and investigation, failed to re- 
veal God, and resulted only in a heartless skepticism. 
This result not being satisfactory, men turned their 
attention to Oriental theosophy and sought there to 
find a solution of the problem of human destiny. 
"Chief among the religious systems of the East in prac- 
tical influence on the Grecian mind was the Jewish 
theology, as presented in the Hebrew Scriptures, and 
which, as blended with the lofty idealism of Plato, 
formed this Jewish-Hellenic school." This system op- 
posed the divine to the earthly, contemning the mate- 



drian 
Philosophy. 



Miracles 79 

rial and sensible, "requiring an ascetic emancipation 
of the soul from the bondage of sense, and believing in 
a divine revelation to man in the state of enthusiasm." 
How far this system of mysticism was removed from 
the benevolent spirit and moral genius of Christianity 
is too well known to need naming here. 

These schools of philosophy, while they could not have 
given rise to Christianity, nor in any sense have favored 
its promulgation, were, nevertheless, well adapted to 
prepare the public mind to investigate the new system 
of religion and to critically examine the grounds of its 
claims; and if there were any defects in the proofs 
which it introduced as evidence, to have exposed them. 

Civilization and learning, in the ancient world, were 
then at their zenith, and, while the age of Pericles and 
Alcibiades had passed when Greece was reduced to a 
Roman province, yet Athens was still a great commer- 
cial center, and the Areopagus the most sacred and 
reputable court of law in the then known world. This 
court had then, and has had a world reputation for its 
legal research and the impartiality and weight of its 
decisions. It is an admitted fact that, while the Ro- 
man sword conquered Greece, Grecian philosophy in 
turn conquered Rome. Julius Caesar was a pupil of 
Milo, and Cicero himself was a pupil of both Milo and 
Philo, the latter of whom was a refugee from Athens 
at Rome during the civil war. Roman senators as well 
as other men, not a few, either sent their sons to Greece 
to be educated or had Greek instructors brought to 
Rome to educate their families. Now it was in this 
bright, intellectual age, "the golden age of Rome," that 



80 Apologetics 

Jesus was born. And, too, it was an age "proverbial 
for its preeminence in literature and the arts." Au- 
gustus Caesar was on the throne of Kome at the time, 
the twelfth year of his reign, and about all that civili- 
zation and learning could achieve for the world, it had 
the full and unembarrassed opportunity of accomplish- 
ing during his reign. The student of history who is 
familiar with the classics of the Augustan age, yes, 
with all forms of learning in that age of culture, knows 
well that no other age in human history was so pecul- 
iarly fitted to find the truth and expose error as was 
the era of the advent of the Son of Man. 

Viewing Christianity from this lofty attitude, it oc- 
cupies a most enviable position. Not in an unlettered, 
but to an age celebrated by story and immortalized in 
song, Jesus first announced himself. He sent out his 
apostles to preach the gospel over classic ground, and 
established his church in the land of Euclid, Socrates, 
and Plato, of Demosthenes and Longinus, of Solon, 
Lycurgus, and Priam, of Homer, iEschylus, and Pin- 
dar; in the classic lands of the yellow Tiber, where 
Horace and Virgil, Terence and Varro had sung their 
liquid measures, and where Livy, Sallust, Cicero, and 
Atticus lived and wrote, the historic land, whose classic 
halls had often reechoed to the boisterous Pholloc and 
the thundering dithyramb. "Countries that had given 
birth to such men were not likely to shut their eyes 
upon the gradual encroachment of a religion that 
counteracted all their previous notions, and that poured 
contempt upon their altars and their gods." Look for 
ia moment at the constellation of great men who lived 



Miracles 81 

during the age Jesus and his apostles lived, or about 
that time — Seneca, Lucian, Quintus Curtius, the El- 
der Pliny, Tacitus, Martial, Epictetus, Josephus, Quin- 
tilian; these are the men under whose eyes, as it were, 
the gospel was preached and the miracles recorded in the 
New Testament performed. 

Hence it will be seen that, while Christ's immediate 
disciples were not men of great learning, yet they, with 
their Master, preached his gospel and performed their 
miracles "in the presence of men and women of cul- 
ture and learning, who believed not only their preach- 
ing, but also believed the "mighty works" — the mir- 
acles — which were wrought by them to be genuine. 
The best evidence they could give of their belief was 
just to do what they did — "become his disciples/' 
Now, the only reward the Master promised his dis- 
ciples, and to all who would become his followers, was, 
in a word, "eternal life." The proof he gave to them 
of his divine commission was his miracles. They were 
so situated as to know whether his miracles were gen- 
uine or spurious. If his miracles were spurious, that 
is, if the proof of his divine commission was spurious, 
then he was a fraud, and his divine commission was 
a farce, and his promised reward — eternal life — was a 
myth. His disciples and those who waited on his min- 
istry, and were eye-witnesses of his miracles, surely 
knew whether his miracles were spurious or genuine. 
If they knew them to be spurious, they also knew he 
was a deceiver; if they knew he was a deceiver, they 
also knew his promise of eternal life was a deception, 
for then it is not his to give. Would a reasonable man 



82 



Apologetics 



Apostles 
had Power 
to Work 

Miracles, 



become the follower of another whom he knew to be 
a deceiver in hope of receiving a reward such as eternal 
life, when he, at the same time, knew that the only 
proof which he gave of his divine commission was a 
fraud, which divine commission, also, was the only guar- 
antee that he gave of his ability to bestow eternal life 
upon his followers ? 

To assume, then, that Jesus was not God's ambassador 
to earth to reveal the will of the Father to his chil- 
dren, is to assume that the disciples and recorders of his 
gospel were the followers of one whom they knew to 
be a deceiver in hope of receiving the reward of "eter- 
nal life" which he promised them, which eternal life 
they also knew existed only in the brain of their Mas- 
ter; moreover, that they went forth hazarding every- 
thing to preach a gospel which they knew to be false 
for the sake of one whom they knew had tried to de- 
ceive them, and for the sake, also, of a reward which, 
in so far as their Master was concerned, they knew did 
not exist. It requires here really more faith to doubt 
than it does to believe. 

It was not only Jesus, the recognized founder of 
Christianity, who claimed to perform miracles, and to 
whom miraculous power was attributed, but his dis- 
ciples and apostles made a like claim for themselves, 
based on the per sumption of a miraculous gift having 
been bestowed upon them by their Master in accord 
with his special promise; 1 and to them also many mir- 
acles are ascribed. Xow, these disciples and apostles 
surely knew whether they had this miraculous gift or 



1 John 14: 12: Mark 16* 



Miracles 83 

had it not; whether they really healed the sick and 
raised the dead, whether the man maimed in respect 
to his limbs actually rose up and walked, and whether 
their fetters in prison actually fell off, and the prison 
door swung open at the approach or touch of the angel. 
Now, their whole course in all their after life was based 
on their professed conscious knowledge of the reality 
of the miraculous gift received from their Master, and 
then exercised by each for himself on afflicted hu- 
manity. In all this they were either deceived or not 
deceived, or they were deceivers. The former was not 
possible if the latter were true; that is, if they were 
deceivers, then they led their life of suffering and sor- 
row at the sacrifice of every earthly advantage and com- 
fort, in conscious knowledge every moment that their 
professed miraculous gift, and pretended exercise of it, 
had no foundation whatever in truth, and that their 
supposed hope of, and belief in, immortality beyond the 
grave, based on the promises of Christianity, was a 
lie — but this is not reasonable, therefore the probabili- 
ties are that they were not deceived and were possessed 
of a miraculous gift, and that their claims were true. 
Also, they exercised this superhuman, miraculous gift 
in the presence of all the people, and their miracles were 

all open to inspection, and were critically examined, The 

, ,, v i . -, -, £ Character 

both by iriends and toes. of the 

2. The miracles wrought both by Christ and his fol- Miracles 

Made Them 
lowers were such as to be open at once to inspection pen to 

by the senses. They were not sleight-of-hand perform- Criticism 

ances, not the trick of a juggler; nor did they in any Detection 

sense partake of that nature. A blind man received his of **■**• 



84 



Apologetics 



Miracles 
Cover a 
Long 

Period. 



sight, a multitude was fed with a few loaves and fishes, 
a dead man was raised to life, a leper was healed — such 
are some of the miracles recorded in the Xew Testa- 
ment. Also, these miracles were performed in the pres- 
ence of mixed multitudes — men and women of all 
classes were witnesses of them, the Pharisee, the Sad- 
ducee, centurions, doctors, lawyers, Romans, Greeks, 
beggars, publicans, and scribes, yes, all classes were 
duly represented, so that it was truthfully said, "These 
things were not done in a corner." 

3. Again, the miracles recorded in the Scriptures 
cover a period of not less than from fifteen hundred to 
two thousand years. The miracles of the Xew Testa- 
ment extend over or cover a period of about seventy or 
eighty years, which period, too, as already stated, was 
the most enlightened that belongs to the ancient world. 
It need not be here stated how rapidly the chances of 
exposure multiply with the repetition of the same fraud 
performed or repeated by the same individual. But 
these miracles were wrought through the series of years 
mentioned, and in every instance were recognized as 
genuine. They were performed in the villages, in the 
towns, in the cities, and in the country places. Some- 
times Christ, unaccompanied by his disciples, per- 
formed his miracles in the presence of the multitude, 
at other times in the presence of some or all of his dis- 
ciples and apostles. They were not limited in the marv- 
elous works to special occasions or particular localities, 
but wherever a great act of mercy was needed, or a great 
all-important truth of religion was to be established, or 
God's authority was to be vindicated, they performed 



Miracles 85 

their miracles, and thus accomplished their divine com- 
mission. 

4. Nor did either Christ or any one of his disciples Christ and 
ever fail in his attempt to perform a miracle. True, disciples 
while the disciples were yet in the realm of doubt, they Failed in 
failed to cure the epileptic boy. "But Jesus rebuked Performing 
him, and the demon went out, and the boy was cured 

from that hour." 1 The cures effected were instan- 
taneous, and were not limited to any one class of dis- 
eases, but all manner of diseases, plagues, and evil 
spirits that obtained among the people were cured. 2 
And they came in crowds to see and to hear and to in- 
vestigate, that they might know the truth as well as to 
be healed. 

5. It is an admitted fact, not only that the gospel 

miracles at the immediate time they were wrought were _ __ 

*i ° Subjected 

at once subjected to the most rigid criticism, but that to Rigid 
every generation in Christendom, from first to last, has Criticism in 
subjected them to a like critical examination, and yet 
they stand untouched and untarnished in the category 
of Christian evidences. Every tide of human thought 
that has been hurled against them has been shattered 
and broken, and the God of destiny has swept them 
away. These miracles were not only exposed to the 
most public scrutiny, both of the learned and the illit- 
erate, the wise and the unwise, but in their very nature 
they were such that any mind could examine them. 
They, being performed in the interests of a new re- 
ligion, and given as its evidence of divine authority, — 
a religion, too, that declared war against every other 

1 Matt. 17: 17-19. » Luke 7: 21. 



86 Apologetics 

religion and pronounced them all false, and that to suc- 
ceed must annihilate all others, — would, in the very na- 
ture of the case, not only provoke every form of scrutiny 
and criticism, but also arouse a storm of opposition, 
both from the civil government and from every form of 
ecclesiasticism, as well as from paganism. It is also an 
admitted fact that as miracles multiplied, the storm of 
opposition increased, until the most bitter persecution 
was developed, and every miracle wrought was watched 
and critically investigated, with a view to exposing 
it. These miracles, also, were published and noised 
abroad, and the people nocked together to see the per- 
sons on whom they had been performed, and ques- 
tioned them, as in the case of Lazarus. Their publica- 
tion at the very time they were wrought, and their be- 
ing appealed to as the evidence of the divine commis- 
sion of those who performed them, and the place of 
their occurrence, and the naming of the persons who 
were the recipients of them, afforded every possible op- 
portunity to the investigator to detect and expose the 
fraud, if any fraud obtained. The four Gospels and 
the Acts, according to the New Testament chronology 
of Zahn, were written in the following order and time: 
Matthew wrote his Aramaic G-ospel in Palestine in 62 ; 
Mark completed his Gospel while in Eome in the sum- 
mer of 64; Luke wrote his Gospel and the Acts in 75; 
and John completed his Gospel and his Epistles be- 
tween 80 and 90. Zahn is one of the most conservative 
New Testament scholars on the continent, and no one 
will charge him with having set his dates of the Gos- 
pels too early, while others have assigned a date to 



Miracles 87 

Matthew's Gospel not later than the seventh or eighth 
year after the death of our Lord ; but be this as it may, 
even if the miracles received their first publication in 
the Gospels at the dates assigned by Zahn, yet ample 
opportunity for their examination was afforded, for the 
witnesses, or at least many of them, must have been 
yet alive. But it is a fact notorious in the gospel his- 
tory that from the opening of Christ's ministry to the 
death of "the beloved disciple," at least, the working of 
miracles was one of the important factors in all their 
labors. Their miracles were admitted facts, even if 
they were attributed to demons. The people flocked 
to Jesus to be healed. The leper, the blind, the deaf, 
the afflicted of fever, all came or were brought to him, 
says the record. 1 And then the apostles, in "his name," 
wrought the wonderful works of God 2 ; and appealed 
to the people as witnesses of the fact of his miracles. 
"Ye men of Israel," said Peter, "hear these words : Jesus 
of Nazareth, a man approved of God unto you by 
mighty works and wonders and signs, which God did 
by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves know." 3 
These appeals must have stung to the heart every enemy 
of the new faith, and served as an additional incentive 
to investigation. They sought investigation, examina- 
tion, and criticism at the hand of their opponents, and 
afforded to them every possible opportunity to detect 
and to ferret out every conceivable clue to imposture 
and fraud. 

6. Now, the Author of Christianity was not a 
learned man, neither were his disciples. This is a fact 

»Matt. 8: 3, 6, 15, 38. 2 Acts 3: 16. 3 Acts 22: 22. 



88 Apologetics 

Jesus and that must be taken into account. "The Jews therefore 

Disciples marveled, saying [of Jesus], How knoweth this man let- 

and so ters, having never learned P" 1 Of his disciples, at least 

lJ f c JJ? abl . e of Peter and John, it was "perceived that they were un- 

on the ' learned and ignorant men." 2 Nor were they men of 

credulity of wea ith and influence. Of Jesus it was said, "The foxes 
the Age. 

have holes, and the birds of the heavens have nests ; but 

the Son of man hath not where to lay his head," 3 and 
his disciples were fishermen and tax-collectors. On the 
supposition that Jesus was only a man, and a pretender, 
how is it conceivable that he and a dozen men of only 
like qualifications, unlettered Jews with himself, could 
take their place among the educated and cultured of 
society in that marvelous age of learning, and establish 
such a stupendous religious fraud upon the world as 
Christianity? For it must be admitted that with his 
pierced hands he has lifted empires from off their hinges, 
revolutionized both the philosophy and religion of the 
ages, and turned the current of centuries from their 
deep-worn channels. Also, it must be borne in mind 
that amid the strifes, persecutions, and intimidations 
that obtained among the eye-witnesses to the miracles 
wrought by Jesus and his apostles not one, even, con- 
fessed that he was deceived or bribed, but always 
averred the truth of what he had seen and experienced. 
Judas, who betrayed his Lord, did not deny his mir- 
acles or charge the Master with deception, but con- 
fessed that he had betrayed "innocent blood." 4 No, 
not one (while some, through the severest torture, aban- 
doned their faith ) ever professed that he had been 

a John7:15. 'Acts 4: 13. 3 Matt.8:20. * Matt. 27:4. 



Miracles 89 

deceived in the works wrought by Christ and his apos- 
tles. Surely, it would have been an easy matter, and, 
at the same time, a creditable act, for such persons to 
have exposed the fraud, if any fraud obtained, in the 
marvelous works performed. But the records of the 
age do not furnish a confession from any one who 
turned away from his Lord that he had been deceived. 
Surely, those who embraced Christianity were made ac- 
quainted with its secrets, and if there were any fal- 
lacies, they knew them, and could have exposed them. 
This they did not do. In the presence of all the accu- 
sations that were charged against Jesus, and having 
listened to the testimony, and after a personal examina- 
tion of the accused, Pilate said, "I find no fault in 
him," and even went so far as to wash his hands and 
aver, "I am innocent of this man's blood." 

7. Now a word or two more about the real charac- 
ter of the miracles themselves. It will be readily ad- 
mitted that they were either true or false. If they were 
false, as stated elsewhere, the persons who performed The 
them knew it, and could not have been good men, but ^f-racter 
deceivers, for it is not supposable that by some strange Miracles 

infatuation they were self -deceived. It is not conceiv- Made 

J Deception 

able that a sane man can so deceive himself and the en- impossible, 
tire community as to believe that he has raised a dead 
man to life, that they are dining with him at the table, 
for in such a miracle, be it remembered, on the assump- 
tion that it is a self-deception, three classes must be 
deceived : first, the miracle performers ; second, the per- 
son upon whom the miracle is wrought; and, third, the 



90 Apologetics 

eye-witnesses. It is not conceivable that such a species 
of deception could have obtained through a long period 
of years, and the deception remain a secret for more 
than eighteen centuries, and the fraud never either de- 
tected or exposed. Surely, the miracles of the Scrip- 
tures, neither in their history nor in their character, 
accord with the idea that their agents were imposters 
and were of impure motives. Most truthfully says an 
able apologist, "But most singularly, contrary to all ex- 
perience and all law, on the assumption that the mir- 
acles of Christ and his apostles were fictitious, you dis- 
cover nothing in them but what is entirely worthy of 
the majesty, holiness, justice, and goodness of the God 
by whose power they professed to be wrought." Is it 
possible for man to conceive of works more in accord 
with the dignit} r , the holiness, and the sacred office of 
the Saviour of men and his apostles, and better quali- 
fied to endorse their high claims than the gospel mir- 
acles? These men, although betted, imprisoned, 
mocked, spat upon, and put to death, all save perhaps 
one, yet sustained a dignity, serenity, and grace, 
and led a life that is the marvel of the ages. Such a 
life is not the life of a deceiver nor of one who was 
self-deceived. But if they were either deceivers or de- 
ceived, their life, then, is out of accord with laws of 
nature and the miracle of the ages. Says Origen, the 
most learned of the church fathers of his day, who 
wrote a criticism on the works of Celsus: "Undoubt- 
edly we do think him to be the Christ and the Son of 
God, because he healed the lame and the blind; and 
we are more confirmed in this persuasion by what is 



Miracles 91 

written in the prophecies, 'Then shall the eyes of the 
blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear, 
and the lame man shall leap as an hart/ But that he 
also raised the dead ; and that it is not a fiction of those 
who wrote the Gospels is evident from hence, that, if 
it had been a fiction, there would have been many re- 
corded to be raised, and such as had been a long time 
in their graves. But it not being a fiction, few have 
been recorded ; for instance, the daughter of the ruler of 
a synagogue, of whom I do not know why it was said, 
'She is not dead, but sleepeth,' expressing something pe- 
culiar to her, not common to all dead persons : and the 
only son of a widow, on whom he had compassion, and 
raised him to life after he bid the bearers of the corpse to 
stop ; and the third, Lazarus, who had been buried four 
days." This is a most wonderful testimony, and I know 
of no appeal more explicit, more positive, and more 
direct to the Christian miracles than the words just 
quoted from the eminent father. 

8. But the gospel miracles were not false, their ene- 
mies being the witnesses to their truth. Is it not re- Christ's 

markable that the Hebrew nation admitted their genu- ?5 eD S? B ^ 

° Admitted 

ineness ? All admit the Jew's dislike, yea, his bitter that He 
hatred of Jesus and his apostles; also, his strong love 2j*?S!!? d 
in favor of his own religious institution. Yet not one 
denial of the reality of any of the miracles of the 
Gospels is recorded by him, and this amounts to a silent 
admission of their genuineness. But it is a fact, that the 
whole Hebrew family was astounded and speechless in 
the presence of the wonders wrought by him and his 
disciples, who was to be the light of Israel. Is it also 



92 Apologetics 

not a singular fact that no one, either Jew or Gentile, 
ever detected, or was supposed or professed or was re- 
ported to have professed to have detected any imposture 
or fraud in the gospel miracles? On this feature of 
that age history is utterly mute, from which but one 
inference can be drawn, namely, that the recorded mir- 
acles of the gospel were at that time, both by friend and 
foe, recognized as facts. ISTow, these miracles were "not 
wrought in a corner," as Paul states, but wherever 
Jesus and his disciples went these miracles were pro- 
fessed to have been wrought. Had it been untrue, the 
literature of that age, both Jewish and pagan, would 
have been crowded with statements of the fraud. But 
not one line of that kind was written; but, on the con- 
trary, they were admitted to be facts. The Talmud 
admits their reality, but vainly attempts to explain 
them as the work of magic. Celsus, a pagan philos- 
opher, who lived about the middle of the second cen- 
tury, and a man of no mean genius, wrote a treatise 
against the whole scheme of Christianity, in which he 
admits that Christ wrought miracles, and asserts that 
he had been in Egypt and learned magic art, by which 
he wrought miracles, "which engaged great multitudes 
to adhere to him as the Messiah." Hierocles also ad- 
mitted the verity of the Christian miracles, as did 
Julian, the emperor, who says, "Jesus did nothing 
worthy of fame, unless any one can suppose the curing 
the lame and the blind and exorcising demons in the 
villages of Bethsaida are some of the greatest works." 1 
The same author admits that Jesus had power over 

»Lardner, Vol. IV., pp. 332-342. 



Miracles. 93 

demons, and that he walked on the surface of the sea. 
According to Saint Jerome, Porphyry, the most learned 
and critical of the pagan writers against Christianity, 
acknowledged the verity of these miracles, but ac- 
counted for them as the work of magic, as did Celsus. 
Porphyry recognized that demons were subject to 
Christ, for he says, "After Jesus was worshiped, 
Esculapius and the other gods did no more converse 
with men." Quadratus, a pagan philosopher who be- 
came a Christian, says, "Those whom our Saviour 
raised and healed were not only seen while he himself 
was upon earth, but survived his departure out of the 
world; nay, some of them were living in our day." 1 

Hence, not the friends of Christianity only, but also 
its enemies bore witness to the gospel miracles. And 
while attempts were made by many to account for 
them by magic, yet their reality was denied by none. 

9. Now there is one more fact that must be noted 
in this connection. During the time that Christ and 
his apostles were performing their miracles, yes, dur- 
ing the first century, many who at first were persecutors 
of the Christians afterwards became converts to the 
faith they had sought to destroy. And the chief factor persecutors 
which led up to their conversion was their positive of 
knowledge and belief of the verity of the miracles re- Become 
corded in the gospel. Among the converts were Jews, Converts. 
Greeks, and Eomans. Each had his own peculiar re- 
ligion, which was the religion of his fathers, and all the 
bias peculiar to ancestral customs and institutions gath- 
ered about him. All history, both sacred and profane, 

^Euseb. Hist. 1-4, c.3. 



94 Apologetics 

that belongs to that age, is full of the scorn, odium, 
and hatred that attached to Christianity in that day. 
The historian seems not to weary of telling of the 
cruel mockings, the scourgings, and the bitter torture 
and death to which the Christians of the first century 
were subject. But in the face of all these obstacles, 
these men who themselves had been persecutors, broke 
away from the established institutions of their fathers 
and embraced the faith which they had despised. They 
knew before they did this the ridicule to which they 
would expose themselves and the odium that would 
attach to such a course. In this they were not deceived, 
but, possessed of a conviction that these teachers were 
sent from God, and that their mighty works were Heav- 
en's seal of approval upon their claims, they embraced 
the Christian faith and became its martyrs. Had there 
been but one persecutor who afterwards embraced Chris- 
tianity, it, perhaps, would be no marvel ; but there were 
not only scores and hundreds who did so, but many ten 
thousands did the same thing. Had these converts been 
predisposed to favor Christianity, their testimony might 
not be of much weight in the case, but having been 
enemies, — persecutors, — their testimony is ponderous, 
yes, overwhelming. 

It is generally conceded that men before acting are 
The Motive always prompted by some motive. But in the case of 
in these men, what motive could have prompted them to 

Christianity abandon their persecution and embrace Christianity, 
waB and thus take the place of the persecuted? It surely 

of the was not personal earthly gain. It could not have been 

Truth, worldly honor. It could not have been worldly power. 



Miracles 95 

The Author of Christianity promised nothing of this 
kind to his followers. He told them, on the other hand. 
"In the world ye shall have tribulation/' "Ye shall 
persecute [them] from city to city." 1 "Ye shall be 
hated of all men for my name's sake." 2 The conditions 
to which the Christians of that age were subjected are 
most vividly set forth in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
and in the same epistle the reasons are assigned why 
they underwent such conditions for the cause of Chris- 
tianity. "And others had trial of mockings and 
scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: 
they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were 
tempted, they were slain with the sword: they went 
about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being destitute, af- 
flicted, evil entreated (of whom the world was not 
worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves, 
and the holes of the earth." 3 Is it reasonable that men 
would embrace a faith and espouse a cause which were 
leading to such issues when they knew that they 
were grounded on error? Such a course is altogether 
out of accord with human nature. The true motive 
which prompted these men to change their course in 
life and in religion is definitely set forth by Saul of 
Tarsus, who was one of them, in the defense before 
Agrippa, the king. The fact of the resurrection, and 
the marvelous manifestation from heaven which ap- 
peared unto him and his company while on their 
mission of persecution to Damascus was overwhelm- 
ingly convincing to him of the verity of Christ's mis- 
sion and of the whole scheme of Christianity. The lives 

4 John 16:33. Matt. 23: 34. * Mark 13: 13; John 10: 33. » Heb, 11: 36-38. 



tion. 



96 Apologetics 

led by these witnesses are an illustration of the truth 
of the testimony which they give as the reason for their 
change in their religious life. Indeed, if such witnesses 
are not to be believed, where are we to seek for testi- 
mony in proof of the truth of any case that comes under 
jcapitula- the senses? 

Now to recapitulate the arguments adduced in this 
chapter : 

1. The age in which Christ and his apostles lived 
and wrought their miracles was one of great intellec- 
tual enlightenment and learning. The civilization, lit- 
erature, philosophy, and art of the ancient world cul- 
minated in that age, and- the human mind was never 
better prepared to test the truth of miracles than at 
that time. 

2. The miracles performed were at once open to the 
inspection of the senses, and their truth could be, and 
was tested by the witnesses, and the witnesses were from 
all classes and conditions of men. 

3. The Scripture miracles extend over a period from 
fifteen hundred to two thousand years. The New Tes- 
tament miracles, over a period of almost one hundred 
years, or, at least, up to the death of the "beloved dis- 
ciple." The miracles thus wrought were always recog- 
nized as genuine, and were not limited to any special 
locality. 

4. Neither Christ nor any one of his disciples ever 
failed in his attempt to perform a miracle, except as 
stated on page 85. The cures effected were always in- 
stantaneous, regardless of the nature of the disease. 

5. These miracles were not only subject to the 



Miracles 97 

scrutiny of the eye-witnesses, but they have been open 
to the inspection and criticism of every generation that 
has lived since that day. And, too, they, having been 
performed in the interest of a new religion, attracted 
special attention, and must have aroused great opposi- 
tion and elicited the most rigid scrutiny. Also, their 
publication at the very time they were performed, and 
being appealed to as a special proof of the performer's 
divine commission, afforded ample opportunity to de- 
tect and expose fraud. But they were admitted to be 
facts. 

6. That Christ and his apostles were not learned men 
is an admitted fact, yet on the supposition that their mir- 
acles were frauds and that Christianity is a deception, 
they, by their fraud, have lifted empires from off their 
hinges, turned the currents of the centuries from their 
deep-worn channels, and revolutionized the religious 
thought of the ages. Of all who embraced Christianity 
in that day, notwithstanding the persecutions and in- 
timidations, not one confessed that he had been deceived 
by the miracles of his Lord, but even averred that what 
they had seen and heard were matters of fact. 

7. The miracles recorded in the Scriptures were 
either true or false. If they were false, the men who 
performed them must have been bad men, or they were 
self-deceived. The life of suffering they lived and the 
death they died disprove the assumption that they were 
bad men. On the theory that they were self-deceived, 
in each case three classes must have been deceived : first, 
the miracle worker ; second, the recipient of the miracle ; 
and, third, the eye-witnesses ; that is, Jesus was deceived 

7 



98 Apologetics 

when he is said to have raised Lazarus from the dead; 
second, Lazarus was deceived when he was said to be 
dead and raised to life ; and, third, all the eye-witnesses 
were deceived when they thought Lazarus was dead and 
supposed Jesus raised him to life again. This is not 
reasonable. Christ and his disciples did not live and 
act the part of self-deceived men. More than eighteen 
centuries lie between their day and ours, yet no decep- 
tion, no fraud, has ever been detected in the gospel mir- 
acles. 

8. But the enemies of Christianity attest the truth 
of the gospel miracles, also. Not one recorded case 
from that age comes to us where an enemy of the Chris- 
tian faith denied the reality of the recorded miracles 
of Christ and his apostles. But, on the other hand, both 
Jew and pagan admitted their reality, but attributed 
them to the work of demons. 

9. But this must not be overlooked in this connec- 
tion, namely, that many who at first were persecutors 
of the Christians broke away from their persecution and 
embraced Christianity, and died martyrs to the faith. 
These converts professed to have been convinced of the 
truth of Christianity by the miracles wrought by Christ 
and his disciples and the worthy lives they lived. 
Surely, their attitude to the Christian faith in all their 
after life, as contrasted with their life prior to their con- 
version, renders them very worthy witnesses. 



CHAPTEK VI. 

Facts Admitted in Cheistianity. 

As the world looks backward, it sees many important 
milestones set up, marking the route over which the 
family of mankind has traveled. Some of these stones Admitted 



mark definite epochs in human history. Christianity 
is one of these. There is no fact in history better au- 
thenticated and more completely buttressed about with 
admitted proofs than are the facts connected with the 
advent of Jesus of Nazareth and his authorship of 
Christianity. That Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in 
Judea, during the reign of Augustus Caesar; that he 
chose twelve men as his disciples whom he trained for 
the preaching of the gospel; that neither he nor they 
were learned men ; that he taught not longer than three 
years, from place to place in Palestine; that one of his 
disciples, Judas Iscariot by name, betrayed him, and 
that he was condemned by the Jewish Sanhedrim, and 
put to death by crucifixion under the reign of Tiberius 
Caesar, while Pontius Pilate was the Eoman procurator 
at Jerusalem, — all are facts admitted by the well in- 
formed. Tacitus, who wrote about thirty years after 
Christ's ascension, says, speaking of the Christians, 
"They had their denomination from Cliristus, who, in 
the reign of Tiberius, was put to death as a criminal 
by the procurator, Pontius Pilate." 1 That John the 

1 Tacitus, Annals, 15, Chap. 44. 



by All. 



L.ofC. 



100 Apologetics 

Baptist, whose preaching preceded that of Christ, and 
about whom much is said in the Gospels, was put to 
death by Herod, the king, is verified by Josephus, the 
Jew, in the following statement, "Now, some of the 
Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came 
from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of 
what he did against John, that was called the Bap- 
tist; for Herod slew him," 1 
Influence on I n a brief period after the death of Jesus, his religion 
Paganism, h a d ma de a profound impression, not only upon the 
mind of the Jew, whose religion was a pure mono^ 
theism, but the pagan mind, also, was being powerfully 
influenced by what he had taught. That he had taught, 
while living, that he was sent of God to establish a di- 
vine, everlasting, universal kingdom, of which he, the 
"promised Messiah," was to be the head, was a fact 
well understood. !N~ot longer than three days after his 
death, his disciples and the two Marys witnessed that 
he had risen from the dead, and appeared to them in 
accord with the promise he had made to them before 
his death. This alleged resurrection of their Master 
they published, and proclaimed it abroad, for which they 
were subjected to the most bitter persecution, cruel tor- 
ture, and death. Suetonius says, "The Christians were 
severely punished." 2 Pliny the Younger, says, speak- 
ing of the spread of Christianity and the persecution of 
the Christians, "Multi omnis aetatis, omnis ordinis, 
utrusque sexus etiam vocantur in periculum" ("Many 
of every rank, and of both sexes, were brought into 
peril"). 3 The same author was magistrate in Pontus 

1 Antiq. 18, 5-2. * Suet, Nero, Claud. Caes., Chap. 16. 
8 Plin. Epist., 97, lib. 10. 



Facts Admitted in Christianity 101 

and Bithynia in 111 A. D., and in his report to the 
Emperor Trajan, says, "Soliti essent convenere, car- 
menque Christo quasi Deo dicer e" ("They were accus- 
tomed to assemble, and to sing a hymn to Christ as to 
God "). "The contagion of this superstition," he con- 
tinues, "had spread, not into the cities merely, but also 
into villages and into fields. The temples were deso- 
late. The most sacred rites for some time were sus- 
pended. And scarcely any one was found to purchase 
victims for them." 1 Tacitus, who wrote in 64 A. D., 
speaking of the persecution of Christians by Nero, says : 
"This pernicious superstition, thus checked for a while, 
broke out again, and spread not only over Judea, where 
the evil originated, but through Eome, also, whither 
everything bad upon earth finds its way, and is prac- 
ticed. Some who confessed their sect were first seized, 
and afterwards by their information, vast multitudes 
were apprehended, who were convicted not so much of 
the crime of burning Eome as of hatred to mankind. 
Their sufferings at their execution were aggravated by 
insult and mockery; for some were disguised in skins 
of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs ; some were 
crucified, and others were wrapt in pitch shirts and set 
on fire when the day closed, that they might serve as 
lights to illuminate the night." This author states that 
Nero "lent his own gardens for these executions," and 
took part himself in the circensian entertainment, 
which he instituted for the occasion, "clad in the dress 
of a charioteer." 2 These citations show not only who 
was the author -of Christianity, but also the country in 

1 Pliny, Epistle 97, liber 10. * Tacitus, Annals, lib. 15, Chap. 44. 



102 



Apologetics 



Christian- 
ity Changes 
the Religion 
of the 
Roman 
Empire. 



The 

Beginning 
of Chris- 
tianity and 
the 

Opposition 
to its 
Founders. 



which he lived and established the church, as well as its 
rapid development among the nations. But in spite 
of all forms of persecution, legal enactments, and 
threatenings, the religion of the cross moved on and 
out among the nations. In less than two years from the 
death of its Founder, it had overrun Judea, and by the 
close of the first century it had spread over Syria, Meso- 
potamia, Persia, Lybia, Egypt, Arabia, Armenia, Par- 
thia, and the whole of Asia Minor, and was preached in 
no small part of Europe. 

When Jesus and the resurrection was first preached 
in Eome, the empire was pagan, and her temples were 
all dedicated to heathen gods. In 313 A. D., Constan- 
tine, then emperor of Eome, became a convert to Chris- 
tianity and proclaimed the empire Christian. But even 
before his day, Arnobius tells us that "the whole world 
was filled with Christ's doctrine." He also speaks of 
the "diffusion throughout all countries, of an innumer- 
able body of Christians in distant provinces, of strange 
revolutions of opinion of men of great genius; orators, 
grammarians, rhetoricians, physicians, lawyers, having 
come over to the institution, and that also in the face 
of threats, execution, and tortures." The old religions 
which obtained in those countries where and when Chris- 
tianity came, have been displaced, and now in the clos- 
ing decade of the nineteenth century Jupiter is without 
a worshiper, and has not a temple on the face of the 
whole earth. 

No fact in history is more obvious than that at the 
time of the advent the religions of the world were two 
— Jewish and pagan. Both of these were hostile to 



Facts Admitted in Christianity 103 

Christianity. It not only had to make its way against 
religions prejudice, but against the intellect and learn- 
ing, both of Jews and pagans. Christianity threw itself 
at once across the pathway of both these religions, and 
with an open, avowed purpose of destroying them and 
overturning their most sacred and ancient institutions. 
To accomplish this, Christians organized themselves in- 
to societies, which they called the church, and under 
this form of organization a most marvelous development 
has obtained. Different forms of church polity have 
been established, — the rites of baptism and the sacra- 
ment of the Lord's Supper, and the change of the Jew- 
ish Sabbath to Sunday and its observance, all have been 
in practice since the days of the apostles. 

At different periods great church councils have been 
called to settle disputed theological doctrines, and Church 
learned creeds have been formulated and adopted, which a^Their 
to-day are in force among the churches. On the great Influence. 
problems of the church and her religious institutions 
so much has been written that the modern world is 
almost flooded with the literature of religious thought, 
to a degree that it pervades, directly or indirectly, all 
modern philosophy, poetry, science of government, his- 
tory, and art. While these contributions have come 
largely from the pen of the Christian scholar, yet the 
power of Christianity has been so forceful as to often 
influence the pen, not only of the non-Christian author 
favorably on religious lines, but even the pen of the 
skeptic as well, for Strauss, Eenan, and Ingersoll have 
said many things good of Jesus. 

"No reasonable man questions but that our modern 



104 



Apologetics 



Influence of 

Christian- 
ity on 
Civilization. 



Cnristian- 
ity Claims 
to be Divine 
and Appeals 
to Miracles 
as Proof. 



civilization has been marvelonsly affected by Chris- 
tianity. Not only its literature, but its laws and its 
institutions have, in a sense, been molded by the Christ 
spirit. This could not well be otherwise, for the kings 
and the queens and the presidents of our Christian civ- 
ilization are Christians, at least in name, while many 
of them are Christians in fact. While it is true that 
in the name of religion many wicked and atrocious deeds 
have been done, yet every right-minded person knows 
they were perpetrated in violation of the plain letter 
and spirit of the Holy Scriptures. Aye, and the authors 
themselves of such wicked deeds were well aware that 
their acts were wholly out of accord with the teachings 
of Christ and his apostles. 

Again, we repeat what we have at least impliedly 
stated elsewhere, that it is an acknowledged historical 
fact that Christianity offered itself to the world, and 
was pushed into history, and demanded that it be heard 
and received upon the pretense of miracles publicly 
wrought as an evidence to all peoples where the gospel 
should be preached, of its divine authority; and that it 
was actually received by multitudes in the age and the 
identical localities where its miracles were wrought, 
upon the professed belief of the reality of those mir- 
acles. In this, including the Jew's religion and their 
Scriptures, Christianity is distinguished from all other 
religions. For, surely, no well informed person will 
claim that Mohammedanism or any other religion, ex- 
cept the religion of the Holy Scriptures, was received 
upon the fact of supposed miracles publicly wrought, 
as the miracles of the Scriptures are reported to have 



Facts Admitted in Christianity 105 

been. Now, it is a known fact that multitudes of Jews 
and of pagans in different parts of the world where the 
apostles preached and wrought miracles, forsook the re- 
ligions of their fathers and embraced Christianity, and 
thus separated themselves from their friends and ex- 
posed themselves not only to many inconveniences, but 
to indignities, as well as, in a word, gave up the world, 
for that was the condition of discipleship. I ask, is it, 
therefore, reasonable that they would have done all this 
had they not positive knowledge of the truth of those 
miracles upon a knowledge or belief of which they pro- 
fessed to do it? Surely, the first converts to Chris- 
tianity must have believed them; that is, their accept- 
ance of Christianity was an open declaration of their 
knowledge or belief in the reality of those miracles. 
And as Bishop Butler has said : "And this their testi- 
mony is the same kind of evidence for those miracles as 
if they had put it in writing and these writings had 
come down to us. It is real evidence, because it is of 
facts which they had capacity and full opportunity to 
inform themselves of." For were a fact expressly re- 
lated by one or more ancient historians, and disputed in 
after ages, that this fact is acknowledged to have been 
believed by great numbers of the age in which the his- 
torian says it was done, would be allowed as an addi- 
tional proof of such fact, quite distinct from the express 
testimony of the historian. The credulity of mankind is 
acknowledged, and the suspicion of mankind ought to 
be acknowledged, too; and their backwardness even to 
believe, and, greater still, to practice what makes against 
their interest. And it must particularly be remem- 



106 Apologetics 

bered that education and prejudice and authority were 
against Christianity in the age I am speaking of. So 
that the immediate conversion of such numbers is a 
real presumption of something more than human in this 
matter. Now, it is the combination of these admitted 
facts of primitive Christianity that makes its accumula- 
tive evidences so complete and overwhelming. It is fact, 
not fancy, that the true apologist has always presented, 
and it is her truths that the opponents of Christianity 
have had to combat, and have vainly attempted to set 
aside. And, moreover, it is her facts which exhibit how 
grand a phenomenon Christianity is in the history of 
the world, and, therefore, the duty of the apologist is to 
make manifest that the Holy Scriptures give a true ac- 
count of its origin, for on its truth, not on fiction, on 
a knowledge of facts, not on human credulity, it must 
ever stand or fall. 



Has Ever 
Seen. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Christ — A Self-Bevelation of God to Man". 

1. Christianity alone presents the only ideal char- Jesus the 
acter to the world. It finds this personality in its own Per f ect Life 
author, Jesus, the Nazarene. This Jesus is not a myth- the World 
ical, but a real character, whose nationality and country 
are well known, and whose birth, life, and death created 
a new era in the world's history. He is the historic 
Christ, whose character is not made up of negative vir- 
tue alone, devoid of culpable traits, but a character 
which, through the vicissitudes of the centuries, has in- 
spired the lives of men with a religion of love that is 
adapted to all men of every age, temperament, and con- 
dition, a character which is not only the true type of 
virtue, but inspires the strongest incentive to practice 
it, and has exercised an influence so profound upon the 
world "that the simple record of three short years of 
active life has done more to regenerate and soften man- 
kind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and ex- 
hortations of moralists of all ages." Now, how is this 
character to be explained on the principles of human 
nature ? In the Author of Christianity this peculiarity 
at once is manifest, that, while all other men, at least 
in a degree, are formed by the spirit of the age and 
their environments, in the Christ there is no impression 
or touch whatever, either of the age in which he lived 

107 



108 



Apologetics 



Jesus is 
Cosmopoli- 
tan in his 
Character. 



Christ's 
Life on 
Earth was 
Solitary. 



or his environment, but he seems to have been absolutely- 
over all and above all. 

The state of society and the tastes and customs of 
the people of his day are well known, as are also the 
expectations and hopes of his countrymen; yet, had he 
been brought up and lived in another world, he could 
not have been more free and untouched by, or exalted 
above them. In character, he is absolutely cosmopoli- 
tan, having nothing temporary or local in it. He stands 
out among the sons of men like an oasis in a desert, 
and from the day he was "lifted up," as the centuries 
have swept by, his fame has steadily increased, and the 
nations of earth have been so touched by his "drawing" 
power that now he is the most prominent figure and best 
known of all earth's children. Among the learned and 
the illiterate, his history and character are more studied 
than the history and character of any one member of 
our race, and more lives have been written of Jesus than 
of any other man. These lives have been written alike 
by Christians, skeptics, and Jews. Out of his teach- 
ings have come more of joy and comfort to the high and 
the low, the sick and the sorrowing of earth's children 
than from all that sages have dreamed and poets sung. 
He has overturned empires, thrown down the temples 
of Jupiter, robbed him of his worshipers, and consigned 
him to the oblivion of the past. 

We find in Jesus nothing of the spirit of the age in 
which he lived. His apostles brought that spirit to 
him, and its strength is made manifest in the slowness 
with which it submitted, in these men, to the teachings 
of their Master. Indeed, he was a solitary being, whom 



The Christ 109 

none understood, living for purposes comprehended only 
by himself, without the sympathy or support of a single 
mind. The expectation of the advent of the Messiah 
was at its zenith among his people, and he claimed to 
be that person. But he threw himself across the path- 
way of the current opinions of his countrymen on that 
subject and resisted them without reserve. A temporal 
king and a temporal kingdom was the Jew's highest 
expectation — a leader that would marshal Israel and 
take vengeance upon her foes, and establish the throne 
of DaviJ forever in Jerusalem. But he declared him- 
self a messenger of peace, 1 a teacher of righteousness, 2 
the Saviour cf the Gentiles as well as of the Jews, 3 and 
that his kingdom was not of this world, but spiritual. 4 
Thus his conception of the kingdom of God and of the 
Messiah's reign was an offense to his people. Nor did he 
attempt in any way to disguise his purpose or soften his 
opposition to their dream of ages, their most cherished 
hopes, and thus conciliate prejudice and mollify the 
effrontery of change from long established religious be- 
liefs and customs ; but, on the other hand, he showed his 
utter disdain for such methods, the resort of ambition 
and imposture. 

But with a seeming consciousness of the truth of his 
cause, the Founder of Christianity adopted methods to 
accomplish his high mission — methods which would at 
once secure his hatred and rejection, which are out of 
accord with the principles of our common human na- 
ture, and which exonerate him from the possibility of 

'John 14:27; 16:3. * Matt. 5: 6. 3 Matt. 12:21. * John 18: 36. 



110 



Apologetics 



Personal 
Character- 
istics of the 
Christ. 



His Ideas 
Were 
Different 
From All 
Other Men. 



having been prompted by selfish aims or inspired by 
either ambition or imposture. 

2. Now, let us note some of the personal character- 
istics of the Christ. The period in which he lived is 
well known to have been remarkably narrow and big- 
oted, and his own nation particularly selfish. But 
Jesus was in nothing more marked than in the vastness 
of his conceptions. Not the salvation of one nation, 
but to save a world, was his mission; and yet so bound- 
less and compassionate was he that not even a sparrow 
falls to the ground that does not receive his Father's 
notice. 1 All that was vital in ancient Judaism he de- 
veloped from the creed of a tribe into the religion of 
a world. All about him was the narrow expectation of 
the Jew that Messiah would deliver God's ancient peo- 
ple at the sacrifice of the rest of mankind ; but, contrary 
to this expectation, he declared himself to be the de- 
liverer and light of the whole world, and, whether at the 
cross beneath or at the throne above, that consciousness 
never forsook him. The conception of one religion for 
all peoples was his own, and a thing unthought of by 
either Jew or pagan. Said Celsus, "The man who can 
believe it possible for Greeks and barbarians, in Asia, 
Europe, Libya, to agree in one code of religious laws 
must be utterly void of sense." 2 The world's sages had 
never conceived of the possibility of a universal faith; 
it was above the philosopher's dream, and beyond the 
ambition of the conqueror's most extravagant imagina- 
tions. 

Now, these vast conceptions of Jesus — one religion 



1 Matt. 10: 29. * Geikie, Life and Works of Jesus, p. 10. 



The Christ 111 

for all peoples, the annihilation of all caste, a universal 
kingdom of righteousness and peace established on the 
law of love — cannot be reconciled on the principle of 
his environment. He was a Jew, and the law of environ- 
ment would be that he would think as a Jew and act as 
a Jew, but he did not. The first, last, and all-the-time 
thought of the Jew was, the superiority conferred on 
him and his people by the religion of Moses and their 
descent from Abraham. He never tired of saying, "We 
have Abraham to our father." 1 The thought of the 
Hebrew mind of the age is expressed in the second Book 
of Esdras, thus : "On our account thou hast created the 
world. Other nations sprung from Adam, thou hast 
said, are nothing, and are like spittle, and thou hast 
likened their multitude to the droppings from a cask. 
But we are thy people, whom thou hast called thy first- 
born, thine only begotten, thy well-beloved." 2 Also, in 
the Book of Sifri we read, "A single Israelite is of more 
worth in the sight of God than all the nations of the 

world : every Israelite is of more value before him than J esu8 _ _ 
• J Revealed 

all the nations who have been or will be." But Jesus, the 

in direct opposition, declared the universal brotherhood ? ro i he 5" 

x - 1 7 nood of Man 

of man and the Fatherhood of God. Of this the world and the 
had never before heard, and was in no sense prepared J^jJJJ 1100 * 1 
to receive it. It was not only an offense to the Hebrew, 
but to the Greek and the barbarian as well. While the 
world about him was a bundle of selfishness, the unique 
charm of his character was a life of absolute unselfish- 
ness. This life of self-denial he incorporated into his 
religion, and made it the test of all healthy religious 

1 Matt. 3: 9. 2 (6:55). 



112 



Apologetics 



How 
Account 
for the 
Character 
of Jesus. 



life. By this supreme standard of religion he rebuked 
the asceticism of John in the solitudes of the wilderness 
and the religious austerities of the hermit in his cell. 
The church and the world alike had fenced off:, as some- 
thing distinct from common duties of life, the domain 
of religion, but he pulled down the high wall and sancti- 
fied the whole sweep of existence. He carried religion 
into the haunts and homes of both public and private 
life, and declared it to be "more blessed to give than to 
receive." Active benevolence, labors to feed the hun- 
gry and clothe the naked, the recognition of every man 
as brother, sharing alike their joys and sorrows, dignify- 
ing every sphere of human activity, no difference how 
humble, how low, were his to do and teach, all subordi- 
nated" by a single aim, to the Father's glory. Now, how 
can these views — exalted views and vast conceptions of 
Christ — be reconciled with his humble station in life, 
his general environment? He was the reputed son of 
a carpenter, of humble education as well as birth, 
without means, without influence, only a carpenter. 
Judging from his environment, his knowledge of the 
world could not have been so very extensive ; his experi- 
ence had not been such as to have given him vast con- 
ceptions of a world empire, much less the idea of a spir- 
itual, universal kingdom and the means to employ for 
its establishment. All his life training and the circum- 
stances which ever surrounded him were just the oppo- 
site of this. Had he been a trained soldier under Eo- 
man discipline, and had he taken part as such in Eome's 
conquest of the world, such circumstances might have 
excited his ambition and broadened his views; but, I 



The Christ 113 

tell you, the carpenter shop is not a place to create a 
conception of world empire, nor a life training among 
a class of pessimistic or religiously intolerant Jews cal- 
culated to inspire a thought of the universal brother- 
hood of man; neither did living under Koman domina- 
tion tend to infuse into the heart the spirit, "Love your 
enemies." But under circumstances the most adverse 
to forming a character such as Jesus possessed, he lived 
and was trained. How can we account for this enigma, 
the exception in human history ? 

3. What always strikes me most in the life and 
teachings of Jesus is, the cool, calm confidence he had 
in himself and the ultimate success of the cause which 
he" represented. Says Dr. Channing, "Another striking The 
circumstance in Jesus is the calm confidence with which Confidence 
he always looked forward to the accomplishment of his Himself 
designs." He fully knew the strength of the passions and m His 
and powers which were arrayed against him, and was 
perfectly aware that his life was to be shortened by vio- 
lence, yet not a word escaped him implying a doubt of 
the ultimate triumph of his religion. One of the beau- 
ties of the Gospels and one of the proofs of their gen- - 
uineness is found in our Saviour's indirect and obscure 
allusions to his approaching sufferings and to the glory 
which was to follow — allusions showing us the work- 
ings of a mind thoroughly conscious of being appointed 
to accomplish infinite good through great calamity. 
This entire and patient relinquishment of immediate 
success, this ever-present persuasion that he was to per- 
ish before his religion would advance, and this calm, un- 
shaken anticipation of distant triumph, are remarkable 

8 



114 Apologetics 

traits, throwing a tender, solemn grandeur over our 
Lord, and wholly inexplicable by human principles or 
by the circumstances in which he was placed." 1 "For 
I am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will, 
but the will of him tliat sent me." 2 He claimed to be 
a messenger sent from the other side and to know all 
about that "unknown country." He was the first of all 
earth's children to set up such a claim. Moses and the 
prophets, among the Hebrews, Confucius, Buddha, and 
Zoroaster among the pagans, made no such high pre- 
tensions. He also set up the standard of infallibility 
for himself. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but 
my words shall not pass away." 3 In this he was unlike 
other teachers. He seldom used argument, but, as a 
rule, stated facts and usually laid bare to the under- 
standing of the thoughtful final causes or results. He 
who goes to Jesus for instruction will be disappointed if 
he expects to find an exhaustive digest on art, science, 
or philosophy. This was not his mission. As one has 
said, "His sphere in religion, the character of God, the 
principles of the spiritual life, the forgiveness of sins, 
the discipline of the soul, the life to come." On all 
these themes he has said the last word, and swept clear 
the mist-enshrouded coast of ontology, touched the most 
lofty arch of truth, and made plain the soul's way to 
God. He only of all earth's teachers has laid down the 
infallible rule on which man can think rightly on re- 
ligion, a future life, immortality, and how to come to 
God. The Christ never even hinted that his gospel, his 
teaching, should be questioned or be a subject of argu- 

^Channing's Works, p. 228. 'John 6: 38. » Matt. 24: 35. 



The Christ 115 

ment. It was to be believed, received, and obeyed by 
all who would be blessed by it. It was a series of decla- 
mations set in the most forceful and winning manner. 
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me 
hath everlasting life." 1 "If any man willeth to do his 
,will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of 
I God." 2 Such language is not found on the lips of any 
other of the world's great teachers. It is peculiar 
to the man of Calvary, and, coming from his pure lips, 
it falls on the human ear like the cadence of a sweet 
song at the close of a bright summer day. On all great 
questions touching religion, God, and a future life, the 
world's sages have always spoken with great modesty 
and caution, aye, often with doubt. "Yes, Plato, thou 
reasonest well," said old Cato. But even with Plato 
it was only a matter of opinion, but with Jesus, opinion 
has developed into personal, conscious knowledge. "I 
am the living bread which came down out of heaven." 
Unlike all other men, the Christ made no mistakes. 
His life and his sayings have been before the world for 
almost nineteen centuries. They have been subjected 
to the scrutiny and criticism alike of friend and foe, 
and their verdict accords with the verdict of Pilate, "I 
find no fault in him." He always said the right thing 
at the right time, and in the right way, and to the best 
possible advantage. He never did a wrong act; it was 
always done at the right time, and in the right way to 
meet the conditions which prompted the action. There 
is no evidence that he ever corrected his statement, re- 
considered his plan, or changed his acts. He was the 

»John 6: 35, 51. 2 John 7: 17. 3 John 6: 47. 



Christ Made 
No Mistake. 



116 Apologetics 

faultless man among men, a marvel in the world's his- 
tory. He stood out a mighty Pharos in the great sea 
of humanity, unequalled and unapproached and unap- 
proachable by any of the sons of men. In him the race 
finds the perfect man, perfect in life, perfect in knowl- 
edge, aye, perfect in character — a perfect completion, 
and utterly unaccounted for by the natural principles 
of our common humanity. Imperfection is one of the 
marked features of the world's greatest of men. Jesus 
is the only exception to this. All men have not been 
equally defective. Moses had fewer defects than the 
wise king of Israel, and he illustrated this in his remark- 
ably eventful life. David was better than Saul, Socrates 
than Philip of Macedon, and Cicero than Nero, and 
the lives they lived are the illustrations of the fact. 
While the world's teachers, as a rule, in point of theory 
were good, their lives never measured up to what they 
taught. This same sad fact is only too true at the pres- 
ent. In this respect, history has repeated itself with 
every generation of our sorrow-smitten race. To teach 
the truth is one thing, but to illustrate what the teacher 
has taught in his own well-regulated life is quite a dif- 
ferent thing. 

This Jesus did, so that it makes him a marked man, 
an exception to all men. He walked through the world 
in this respect a moral giant among men. The allure- 
ments of society and the temptations of demons had no 
effect upon him, and, like a Colossus, he stood among 
men, "the holiest among the mighty, and the mightiest 
among the holy." Spinoza calls him "the symbol of 
divine wisdom," Hegel, "the union of divine and hu- 



The Christ 117 

man," and Dr. Channing says, "The character of Jesus 
is wholly inexplicable on human principles/' and the 
Word of God calls him "King of kings and Lord of 
lords." Said De Wette, the most learned and intel- 
lectual of all the German critics, "This only I know, 
that there is salvation in no other name than in the 
name of Jesus Christ, the crucified, and that nothing 
loftier offers itself to humanity than the God manhood 
realized in him, and the kingdom of God which he 
founded — an idea and problem not yet rightly under- 
stood and incorporated into the life, even of those who 
in other respects rank as the most zealous and warm- 
est Christians." At his teachings, paganism is gradu- 
ally melting away, and uncivilized tribes are becoming 
nations under Christian governments. By his magic 
touch whatever was vital in ancient Judaism was ex- 
panded from the mere creed of a tribe into a religion 
for the whole world. He opened up the secrets of the 
Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and 
taught the world to use and appreciate the terms "my 
Father" and "your Father." "From first to last Jesus 
is the same, always the same, majestic and simple, in- 
finitely severe and infinitely gentle. Throughout a life 
passed under the public eye he never gave occasion to 
find fault. The prudence of his conduct compels our 
admiration by its union of force and gentleness. Alike 
in speech and action, he is enlightened, consistent, and 
calm. Sublimity is said to be an attribute of divinity. 
What name, then, shall we give him in whose character 
were united every element of the sublime?" "He is a 
mystery indeed to our intellectual and philosophical 



118 Apologetics 

comprehension, but a mystery made manifest as the most 
glorious fact in history — the blessed mystery of godli- 
ness, the inexhaustible theme of meditation and praise 
for all generations." He is the self -revelation of God 
to man. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Prophecy — A Proof of Christianity. 

The evidences of Christianity are, in their nature 
and tendencies, accumulative. It is the culmination of 
their accumulated evidences, from miracles, from ad- 
mitted facts in the Christian system, from the self- 
revelation of God in Jesus Christ, from the marvelous 
propagation of primitive Christianity, and from proph- 
ecy, and from other sources which bring the honest 
doubters about to a conviction of truth in revealed re- 
ligion. Prophecy is pre-history, and relates wholly to 
future events. It is the historian recording the fate 
of a city or of a nation or of an individual, accurately, 
before that fate is accomplished. To do this requires Defined, 
a miracle of knowledge, knowledge such as is not pos- 
sessed by man in his normal condition, and comes only 
from God. "For no prophecy ever came by the will of 
man: but men spake from God, being moved by the 
Holy Ghost." 1 David Hume said, "All prophecies are 
real miracles, and as such only can be admitted as proofs 
of any revelation." 2 It is the fulfillment which makes 
manifest the miracle in a prophecy, not the mere pre- 
diction that such an event will come to pass. But when 
the event comes to pass, as predicted, then God shows 
his hand in the prophecy, and the miracle of knowledge 

1 II. Peter 1: 21. « Phil. Essays. 

119 



Propnecy 



120 Apologetics 

becomes the highest proof of a revelation. By way of 
illustration: If George Washington, in the last year 
of his life, had predicted that in 1898 an American war- 
ship wonld be blown up in Havana Harbor, and that 
Proof of tne same J ear a war wonld ensne between the United 
prophecy. States and Spain, and that one Admiral Dewey would 
have command of the American warships in the Pacific, 
and that he would go to the Philippine Islands, under 
orders, and there, in Manila Harbor, meet the Span- 
ish fleet and destroy or capture every vessel; and if he 
had claimed that God had thus revealed to him the facts 
stated, and told him to write them in a book, the simple 
prediction in itself would contain no evidence that God 
had spoken to George Washington, but the facts which 
have transpired in 1898 between the United States and 
Spain, being a literal fulfillment of the supposed pre- 
diction, would be a proof that his claim to inspiration 
is vindicated and that God had thus spoken to him. 
Now, on this wise are the predictions, both in the Old 
and the New Testament. The men who wrote the pre- 
dictions contained in the Scriptures claimed that God 
had commanded them to write, and thus they wrote and 
pushed their predictions into history ; and, in a manner, 
too, that they have been before the world and have been 
read and studied from eighteen to three thousand years. 
No reasonable man will claim that ample time and op- 
portunity have not been given to men of the world to 
investigate and test by legitimate methods the truth or 
the falsity of the claims set up by the prophets. There 
is little uniformity in the manner in which they claim to 
have been impressed or commissioned to report their 



Prophecy — A Proof of Christianity 121 

heavenly messages. Seldom are any two of them inspired Prophetic 
in the same way, and seldom, also, any one of them twice inspiration, 
in the same or in like former manner. Sometimes in a 
vision or dream the revelation was given ; sometimes the 
voice of God or the voice of his angel was heard by the 
prophet. At other times God took complete possession 
of the prophet and used him as his mouthpiece. The 
books of prophecy in the Old Testament closed three 
hundred and ninety-seven years before Christ, and in 
the New Testament more than eighteen hundred years 
ago. Standing on the vantage ground of the opening 
year of the twentieth century, it is the privilege of the 
investigator to scan in the light of history the centuries 
which lie between him and the age in which the prophets 
lived and wrote their predictions, and compare the his- 
tory of these centuries with the prophecies and see if 
there is, or has been a veritable fulfillment of them. 
The vast amount of historic evidence acquired, within 
the past few years, from the monuments and the libraries 
exhumed from buried cities, right on the sites where the 
prophets lived and wrote their messages, settles beyond 
a reasonable doubt, not only the dates of the prophecies, 
but also the peoples and the cities against which the pre- 
dictions were uttered. 

1. The flash-lights from the excavations now going 
on in the valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris make 
old Nineveh and Babylon new old cities. From these 
valleys Abraham, the founder of the Hebrew family- f Prophecy 
nation, was called, and from their peoples and cities Regarding 
God has never withdrawn his scourge of "perpetual deso- j^a 
lation." Against Nineveh two of his prophets, Nahum Babylon. 



122 Apologetics 

and Zephaniah, uttered their predictions, and Jonah 
tells us of its vast population and their great wicked- 
ness. Said Zephaniah, six hundred and thirty or more 
years before Christ, "And he will stretch out his hand 
against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will 
make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like the wilder- 
ness." 1 Said Nahum, "But Nineveh hath been from of 
old like a pool of water." "Nineveh is laid waste ; who 
will bemoan her?" 2 These prophets wrote when Nin- 
eveh, the capital of the Assyrian kingdom and empire, 
was in her full splendor. Her destruction came 606 
B. C, and so complete was it that Nineveh dropped out 
of history for more than two thousand years. The site, 
even, of this great city was lost. The later Greek and 
Roman historians knew nothing of Nineveh. Xenophon 
marched his "10,000" over it 400 B. C. Alexander the 
Great made it the camping-ground for his mighty host, 
but was ignorant that Nineveh slept beneath. The critic 
began to inquire, Where is the site of lost Nineveh ? and 
the skeptic and doubter responded, "Nowhere; Nineveh 
is a myth." To-day, the lost and almost forgotten city 
is exhumed. The palace of the great Sargon, probably 
the most magnificent ever erected by the hand of man, 
covering more than twenty-five acres, has been exca- 
vated. The great library of Asurbanipal, who was the 
last of the great kings of Assyria, and a contemporary 
with Manasseh and Josiah of Judah, with its 30,000 
tablets and cylinders, is now before the world, confirm- 
ing biblical history and throwing light upon that remote 
age. Thus Babylon, the capital city of the country 

iZeph. 2 : 13. «Nab.2 : 8 ; 3 : 7. 



Prophecy— A Proof of Christianity 123 

called Shinar in Genesis, but later Chaldea, stood on 
the banks of the Euphrates, about 250 miles distant 
from Nineveh, and was the center of a vast empire. On 
account of her great wickedness, she, together with her 
kings, became the subject of many prophecies. Isaiah, 
713 B. C, predicted her destruction and perpetual deso- 
lation. "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the 
beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, shall be as when 
God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never 
be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from genera- 
tion to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch 
tent there; neither shall shepherds make their flocks 
to lie down there. But wild beasts of the desert shall 
lie there/' etc. 1 Also, "I will also make it a possession 
for the porcupine, and pools of water : and I will sweep 
it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of 
hosts." The glory of this once magnificent city, like 
that of her sister, Nineveh, has passed away forever. 
Her decline commenced with the conquest of Cyrus. 
After the death of Alexander the Great, the seat of 
empire was transferred to Antioch by the Seleucidae, 
which gave the death blow to the prosperity of Babylon, 
and her perpetual desolation came. For ages the sur- 
rounding tribes preyed upon her walls, her temples, and 
her palaces, until the "beauty of the Chaldeans' excel- 
lency" has, as Jeremiah said, literally and most em- 
phatically "become heaps." 2 Her walls have been 
"thrown down," "jackals" hide in her palaces, her land 
is "a wilderness," "owls dwell there." The natives be- 
lieve that some infernal genii have their abode there, 

1 Isa. 13: 19-22; 14: 23. a Jer. 51: 37, 44; also, 50: 15. 



124 



Apologetics 



Prophecies 
Regarding 
Egypt 

Fulfilled. 



and for the wealth of the Indies the "Arab would not 
pitch his tent," neither the shepherd fold his flock 
where once mighty Babylon stood. For generations it 
has been uninhabited. He who now walks through the 
land knows that the predictions of the prophet respect- 
ing Nineveh and Babylon are literally fulfilled. The 
light thrown on this subject by the recent discoveries 
made on the sites of these two great cities, not only 
shows how minutely the prophecy respecting them has 
been, and is now being fulfilled, but also how faith- 
ful the sacred historian was in stating the facts respect- 
ing these cities, their greatness, the pride of their kings, 
and the wickedness of their peoples. 

2. Egypt for ages was a center of the world's civ- 
ilization and commerce. This fact is just, as it were, 
beginning to dawn upon the modern world. The state- 
ments made and the facts implied by the author of the 
Pentateuch, as well as by some of the prophets, were 
laughed out of court by many modern critics ; but since 
the heieroglyphics on Egypt's monuments and the Tel- 
el-Amarna tablets have spoken, a new era in historical 
investigation has dawned, and Moses and the prophets 
have become a new book. This wonder-land, Egypt, 
became interlinked with Hebrew history, and was a 
marked land by her prophets. Ezekiel directs his 
anathemas against this land of the Pharaohs and her 
cities in a most significant manner. Said he : "I will 
make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of the 
countries that are desolate, . . . and I will scatter 
the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them 
through the countries. ... It shall be the basest 



Prophecy — A Proof of Christianity 125 

of the kingdoms ; neither shall it any more lift itself up 
above the nations : and I will diminish them, that they 
shall no more rule over the nations." Again, "Thus 
saith the Lord God: I will also destroy the idols, and 
I will cause the images to cease from Noph; and there 
shall be no more a prince out of the land of Egypt. And 
I will put fear in the land of Egypt. And I will make 
Pathros desolate, and I will set a fire in Zoan, and I 
will execute judgments in No. And I will pour my fury 
upon Sin, the strong hold of Egypt; and I will cut off 
the multitude of No. And I will set a fire in Egypt; 
Sin shall be in great anguish, and No shall be broken 
up: and Noph shall have adversaries in the day-time. 
The young men of Aven and of Pi-beseth shall fall by 
the sword: and these cities shall go into captivity. At 
Tehaphnehes also the day shall withdraw itself, when 
I shall break there the yokes of Egypt, and the pride of 
her power shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall 
cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity. 
Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt : and they shall 
know that I am the Lord." 1 These prophecies were writ- 
ten when Egypt's political sky was clear and her na-' 
tional prosperity was promising. Her valleys never 
were more fertile, nor her citizens better clothed and 
fed. But the eye of the Babylonian from across the 
seas was jealous of that prosperity, and with an over- 
whelming army came Chaldea's greatest monarch and 
broke into smithers the kingdom of the Pharaohs and 
carried her peoples into captivity, and "scattered them 
among the countries." Cambyses performed a like feat, 

1 Ezek.29: 12-15; 30: 13-19. 



126 



Apologetics 



Prophecies 
Regarding 
Tyre 

Fulfilled. 



dashing her cities, temples, and deities to the ground. 
Alexander the Great next inflicted a crushing blow upon 
Egypt, and brushed away her ancient civilization and 
introduced that of the Greek. So complete has been 
her ruin that if you eliminate about sixty years from 
the conquest of Nebuchadnezzar, not one native prince 
has sat upon the throne of Egypt. The cities named 
by the prophet are a complete and a perpetual desola- 
tion. I have walked amid the ruins of On and Karnak 
(Thebes), and looked upon the pyramids and sphinxes 
of Noph (Memphis), and know that the predictions of 
the prophet respecting them are now fulfilled. But why 
this desolation? The valley of the Nile has always 
been equally fertile, and never more so than at the pres- 
ent, and yet her most sacred cities and centers of popu- 
lation have faded to decay, and Egypt is ruled by for- 
eign lords. For more than twenty-three hundred years 
there has been "no more a prince out of the land of 
Egypt." 

3. Tyre was a great Phoenician city, which stood on 
an island in the Mediterranean Sea adjacent to the 
coast line of Phoenicia. In her glory, and in the days 
of Ezekiel, she was the pride and mistress of the seas. 
Of her the prophet predicted: "Thus saith the Lord 
God: Behold, I am against thee, Tyre, and will 
cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea 
causeth his waves to come up. And they shall destroy 
the walls of Tyre, and break down her towers: I will 
also scrape her dust from her, and make her a bare 
rock. She shall be a place for the spreading of nets in 
the midst of the sea ; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord 



Prophecy— A Proof of Christianity 127 

God. . . c And I will make thee a bare rock: 
thou shalt be a place for the spreading of nets; thou 
shalt be built no more ; for I the Lord have spoken it." 1 
After a siege of twelve or thirteen years, the inhabitants 
in part having passed out over the sea to Carthage and 
elsewhere, the city fell into the hands of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, 573 B. C. This scourge marked the beginning 
of the decline of Tyre, and steadily her glory faded, 
until for ages she has been, and now is a place where 
the fishermen "spread their nets." On the 19th of 
February, 1900, 1 passed the little island. Only a hum- 
ble, insignificant town now occupies the site where once 
proud Tyre stood. 

4. The history of the Hebrew race for the past nine- 
teen centuries is a standing proof and literal fulfill- 
ment of the prediction of Moses respecting that people. 
He told them of their coming rebellion against the 
God of their fathers, and then threatened them with 
the judgment that would ensue : "The Lord shall cause The History 
thee to be smitten before thine enemies : . . . and of the Jewa 
thou shalt be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms men t f 
of the earth." "The Lord shall bring a nation against Prophecy. 
thee from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle 
flieth ; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand ; 
a nation of fierce countenance," etc. The Eomans 
were their conquerors, and are here described. Again, 
"The Lord shall scatter thee among all peoples, from the 
one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth. 
. . . And among these nations . . . shall be no 
rest for the sole of thy foot: but the Lord shall give 

*Ezek. 26: 3-5,14. 



128 Apologetics 

thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and 
pining of soul : and thy life shall hang in doubt before 
thee ; and thou shalt fear night and day, and shalt have 
none assurance of they life. 7 ' 1 This whole chapter is a 
marvel of prophecy respecting the Jew. With what 
definiteness the sage of Israel marks the future condi- 
tion of his people ! "And thou shalt become an aston- 
ishment, a proverb, and a by-word among all the peoples 
whither the Lord shall lead thee away." 2 Israel, for 
the past two thousand years, has been scattered over the 
earth. Among the nations she has had, and now has 
"no rest for the sole of her foot." In every country of 
the world the Jew is now found and ostracized "because 
he is a Jew." Among the peoples of the earth to-day 
he is an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word. He 
has been driven by the edicts of kings, at some time in 
history, from every country on the eastern continent, 
and is now a subject of unjust criticism and ostracism 
in every country of the world. For some reason he is 
the hated race. Even his features distinguish him 
among the other races of men, and, notwithstanding he 
may change his name, as he has often done, to get rid of 
the race odium, yet his peculiar type of features "'rind 
him out." The prophet put it well when he said, "And 
among these nations shalt thou find no ease, and there 
shall be no rest for the sole of thy foot." He has been 
banished and recalled and again banished. At the close 
of the war by Titus, they were sold and carried into 
Egypt by ships by the tens of thousands, so that the slave 
markets were glutted and "no man would buy them." 

1 Deut 28: 25, 49, 64. » Deut. 28: 37. 



Prophecy — A Proof of Christianity 129 

They were banished from England by Edward I. They 
were also banished from France by Charles II. ; from 
Prague by the queen of Bohemia ; from Spain by Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella ; as many as 800,000 Jews were said to 
have been banished. They purchased refuge in Portugal 
from John II., and were again banished by Emanuel. 
In our own day, they have been banished from Poland 
and from Kussia, and on the books of the latter the 
decree stands, and is in full force. When these ban- 
ishments ensued in the different countries, the property 
of the banished, as a rule, was confiscated in the interest 
of the "crown," and the poor Jew was sent out a penni- 
less wanderer in a strange land. 1 But, notwithstanding 
these peoples have been scattered among the nations 
and ruled by them, as did Henry III., who "always 
polled the Jews at every low ebb of his fortunes," yet 
they have not been consumed "utterly," but exist now as 
a distinct people, and prosper, too, among all the nations 
of the earth, for said Jehovah, "And yet for all that, 
when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not 
reject them, neither will I abhor them to destroy them 
utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am 
the Lord their God." 2 Israel's lamp has never gone 
out amid "so many wars, battles, and sieges, after so 
many fires, famines, and pestilences, after so many re- 
hellions, massacres, and persecutions, after so many 
years of captivity, slavery, and misery," for Jacob is 
yet among the nations, an "astonishment, a proverb, 
and a byword," the same unsolved problem of the 
modern, as he was of the ancient world, with more than 

1 See Newton on the Prophecies. 2 Lev. 28:44. 



130 Apologetics 

40,000 of his sons and daughters now settled in and 
about the sacred city of their fathers. Indeed, so marvel- 
ous is this prediction of Israel's lawgiver and its ful- 
fillments, that even to the very letter has it either been, 
or is now being, fulfilled in the strange history and 
varied life of this chosen people. There is nothing like 
it in the annals of any other peoples. It is indeed a 
fact that even the modern writer and interpreter of 
this prophecy too often represents, or rather misrep- 
resents the Jew as the very synonym of avarice, usury, 
and hard-heartedness, and assigns that as a reason why 
he is an "astonishment, proverb, and a byword among 
the nations/' But be this as it may, yet by the his- 
torian, the statesman, the artist, and the theologian he 
is a marked man. And, indeed, this is more remark- 
able still when we recognize the fact that the great na- 
tions among whom Israel is scattered and despised go 
to the Jew for their Bible, and take one of the sons of 
this "hated race" and worship him as King of kings 
and Lord of lords, and hope for salvation alone through 
his mediation, 
oftbe 5. The prophet Amos threatened Ammon, Moab,. 

Peoples Philistia, and Edom. These countries were adjacent to 
Israel a Judea, and were in their highest prosperity when the 
Fulfillment prophet raised his voice against them, and at the same 
Propnecy. "time threatened Israel with judgment. The complete 
ruin of Moab and Amon was foretold by Zephaniah, 
"Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of 
Amon as Gomorrah, a possession of nettles, and salt- 
pits, and a perpetual desolation." 1 Jeremiah, Ezekiel, 

*Zeph.2: 9. 



Prophecy— A Proof of Christianity 131 

Isaiah, and Obadiah picture, in striking language, the 
utter destruction of Edom. "And Edom shall become 
an astonishment. ... As in the overthrow of 
Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, 
saith the Lord, no man shall dwell there/' etc. 1 No 
man can pass over these countries named and visit 
their ruined cities and not be impressed with the ful- 
fillment of these predictions. Where are the Amorites, 
the Edomites, the Canaanites, and the Philistines? 
They are gone forever. The Moabites, too, have per- 
ished. Philistia is no more. Many of these cities were 
for ages commercial centers. Their peoples once dic- 
tated peace and war to their neighbors at will, but they 
have forever perished from among the nations, and their Return of 
once proud cities, like the fabric of a vision, scarcely tne JeWB 
have left a wreck behind them. Babylon a 

The author of "The Monuments and the Old Tes- Fulfillment 
tament" 2 has so well stated God's prophetic promise of propnecy. 
his people's return to their own country from Babylon 
under Cyrus that I will give his words in full: "The 
significance of the rise of Cyrus is vividly portrayed by 
the prophetic words to the exiles in Babylon. Words 
of comfort addressed to the exiles assure them (40: 1, 
2) that their punishment will soon cease. They shall 
return to their home-land, inhabit it, and rebuild their 
cities and restore the waste places (44: 26). This shall 
be accomplished by a deliverer who is already on his 
way to conquer. 'Who hath raised up one from the 
east, whom he calleth in righteousness to his foot? he 
giveth nations before him and maketh him rule over 



1 Jer. 49: 17, 18; Obed. 1; Ezek. 25, 35. * P. 231. 



132 Apologetics 

kings; he giveth them as the dust to his sword, as the 
driven stubble to his bow. He pursueth them, and 
passeth on safely; even by a way that he had not gone 
with his feet. Who hath wrought and done it, calling 
the generations from the beginning? I, Jehovah, the 
first, and with the last, I am he' (Isa. 41 : 2-4). Again, 
we find : 'Thus saith Jehovah to his anointed [selected], 
Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue na- 
tions before him, and I will loose the loins of kings; 
to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not 
be shut. . . . For Jacob my servant's sake, and 
Israel my chosen, I have called thee by thy name : I have 
surnamed thee though thou hast not known me. I am 
Jehovah, and there is none else; beside me there is 
no God : I will gird thee, though thou hast not known 
me' (45:1, 4, 5). Cyrus is distinctly designated as 
the agent of Jehovah to conquer the nations. His mis- 
sion was a providential one, and in no sense because he 
was a worshiper of Jehovah, for the sake of his serv- 
ant Jacob. 

"To deliver the Jews it was necessary that the great 
Babylon, the pride of her kings, the yoke of her sub- 
jects, should fall. Numerous prophecies from Jere- 
miah down had pictured her doom. But the conqueror 
is not at hand. 'Come down and sit in the dust, vir- 
gin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a 
throne, daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt 
no more be called tender and delicate. ... Sit 
thou silent, and get thee into darkness, daughter of 
the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called The 
lady of kingdoms.' 'Thou art wearied in the multitude 



Prophecy — A Proof of Christianity 133 

of thy counsels : let now the astrologers, the stargazers, 
the monthly prognosticates, stand up, and save thee 
from the things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they 
shall be as stubble ; . . . there shall be none to save 
thee' (47: 1, 5, 13, 15). Nothing that they can muster 
shall be able to avert the certain doom of the wicked 
city. On the eve of its fall, the prophet sees some of 
its consequences. 'Bel (Merodach) boweth down, Nebo 
stoopeth; their idols are upon the beasts, and upon the 
cattle : the things that ye carried about are made a load, 
a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down 
together; they could not deliver the burden, but them- 
selves are gone into captivity' (46:1, 2). The sub- 
stance of these and other prophecies is, that Babylon 
must be humiliated, her proud position surrendered, 
and even her idols become a load for beasts, and not a 
joy to their own worshipers. This last statement was 
fulfilled only in the sense that the idols, as contrasted 
with Jehovah's power, who was bringing this about, 
would be merely a burden of useless material. For as 
Cyrus himself claimed, it was under the auspices of the 
gods that he marched into Babylon. 

"Having already given (§§213, 214) the contempo- 
raneous records of the fall of Babylon, let us now con- 
sider the Jewish return. We have noted (§215) that 
Cyrus inaugurated a policy of generosity towards his 
new subjects, that he endeavored to promote in every 
way their welfare. As a wise statesman, a shrewd poli- 
tician, and a kind-hearted ruler, he planned methods 
by which he could better the condition of his peoples. 
He was ready to espouse their cause almost to the en- 



134 Apologetics 

dangerment of his throne. He revered their gods, and 
where they had been neglected or desecrated, he was 
solicitous for their restoration to their former venera- 
tion. Babylon and all its precincts bore evidences of 
his spirit in the rebuilding and rededication of many 
shrines and temples. His own appeals to the gods, and 
his avowal of their support, reveal Cyrus as a poly- 
theist of a pronounced type. It was not a matter of 
monotheism, of a possible Zoroastrianism, that called 
his attention to the Jews, but other reasons of no mean 
proportions. (1) In addition to the restoration and 
rehabilitation of captive and dethroned deities, he says 
(Cyl. 32) : 'All of their peoples I gathered together 
and restored to their own dwelling-places/ This def- 
initely stated national policy gives us one reason for the 
royal proclamation (Ezra 1 : 2-4) issued in favor of the 
Jews. (2) It is altogether probable that Cyrus caught 
up from some one in Babylonia the mission which had 
been assigned him by the prophets. 'Cyrus . . . 
is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure : even 
saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built ; and to the tem- 
ple, Thy foundation shaU be laid' (Isa. 44: 28). (3)' 
Palestine had been a kind of buffer-state from time 
immemorial between southwestern Asia and Egypt. To 
occupy and hold that strong fortress, Jerusalem was 
the first step toward the conquest of the rival power. If 
Cyrus could conserve that advantage by aiding the Jews 
to build and hold it, he would be setting up one battle- 
ment in the face of Egypt's army. For one of his next 
strokes would be at the rival power on the Xile. 

"Cyrus issued his proclamation authorizing the re- 



Prophecy — A Proof of Christianity 135 

turn of the Jewish exiles in the first year of his sover- 
eignty as king of Persia (Ezra 1:1), 538 B. C. It is 
entirely reasonable to conjecture that, in accordance 
with his general principles of government, he issued 
many similar documents. The copy quoted in Ezra 1 : 
2-4, gives a few only of the specifications originally an- 
nounced. In subsequent references to the document 
(3:2-7; 5:13-16; 6:1-5), we discover that elaborate 
provisions were made for the building of the temple, 
as well as for the reinauguration of the worship of 
Jehovah. Cyrus had not overlooked anything that 
would contribute to the rapid reclamation of this west- 
ern waste. The proclamation was of such scope as to 
include the Jews in any part of his realm. The citizens 
of the empire were also authorized, if they chose, to 
render assistance to the pilgrims to. Palestine. How 
generally they responded to the royal edict is stated in 
Ezra 2. This pilgrimage of less than fifty thousand of 
the faithful to the land of their fathers relieved the 
administration of Cyrus from the presence, in any part 
of the realm, of a dissatisfied, disturbing Jewish ele- 
ment. It also populated and built up a section of his 
territory which had been overrun and devastated by suc- 
cessive armies of Assyria and Babylonia. It likewise 
gave spirit to a people whose national life had been 
next to blotted out by a succession of well-deserved 
chastisements and captivities. In this event many of 
the brightest and most hopeful utterances of the great 
prophets found their fulfillment and their fruition." Prophecies 
6. Marvelous and striking as are the prophecies of ^^a^lment 
the Old Testament, and their fulfillment, nevertheless, 



New 
Testament 



136 Apologetics 

the predictions of the New Testament are none the less 
so. 

Christ Jesus was not only the Saviour of the world, 
but also a great prophet. Of him said Moses, "The 
Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from 
the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me." 1 
From the opening to the close of his ministry, his dis- 
courses are interspersed with predictions ; and these pre- 
dictions were made to serve as a proof of his mission, 
when the things predicted would come to pass. "Now," 
said the Master, "I tell you before it come to pass, that 
when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he." 2 
He predicted his "suffering," his "death," and his 
"resurrection." From the heights of Olivet he looked 
down upon the doomed city and contemplated its sad 
fate, and said of the temple, "The days will come in 
which there shall not be left here one stone upon another 
that shall not be thrown down." "And Jerusalem shall 
be trodden down . . . until the times of the Gen- 
tiles be fulfilled." 3 No prophecy more terrific is found 
in the Word of God than those recorded in Matthew, 
Mark, and Luke, as the express utterances of our blessed 
Lord against the Jews, Jerusalem, and their temple; 
and the person who is informed of the destruction of 
the sacred city and the nation by the Romans and all the 
subsequent history of that city and its people knows 
that those utterances are to the letter fulfilled. From 
the destruction of Jerusalem, in 70 A. D., to the pres- 
ent hour, "Jerusalem has been trodden down of the Gen- 



*Deut. 18: 1& 'John 13: 19. 3 Luke 21: 6; 21: 24; 19: 41; Matt. 24; 
Mark 13. 



Prophecy— A Proof of Christianity 137 

tiles, and the Jews have been scattered to the ends of the 
earth." "Famines," "pestilences/' "earthquakes," and 
"wars and rumors of wars" were the current history of 
events. In the temple stood the statue of Caligula, 
"where it ought not." "Nation rose against nation," 
"kingdom against kingdom," and the world was a whirl- 
pool in the clash of arms and civil commotion. Noth- 
ing equal to it can be found in the annals of nations, 
in point of famine, cruelty, and death. Mothers ate 
their own children, and suicide was the order of the 
day to escape a more wretched death by falling into the 
hands of the conquering foe. "For," said the Son of 
man, "then shall be great tribulation, such as hath, 
not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, 
nor ever shall be." More than one million perished in 
the siege, while tens of thousands were sold into slavery- 
The darkest pictures in human history are the horrors 
of this siege, described by Josephus, who was an eye- 
witness. Notwithstanding Titus implored the Jews to 
save their city by submitting to his conquering host, 
yet they scorned his mercy and proffered clemency- 
Contrary to the orders of the conqueror, a firebrand was 
hurled into the temple, and then, by command of Titus, 
the city was razed to the ground, and its sad history 
in each passing hour since has been but the fulfillment 
of the Galilean's prophecies. 

7. But the predictions of Paul respecting the "man 
of sin." 1 and John, in Revelation, of the "beast with ten Regarding 

horns and seven heads," 2 are none the less graphic than tne " Man 

of Sin" 
those already noted. Doubtless, Paul and John being Fulfilled. 

»II. Thes. 2: 1-12. 'Rev. 13: 1-9. 



138 Apologetics 

familiar with the books of Daniel, drew somewhat from 
his vivid imagery. That a great apostacy has taken 
place in the church of Christ is a matter of history. 
The facts and the history of the Inquisition under the 
papacy are the evidences of the apostacy, and not only 
point to the ten-horned beast, but to the "man of sin" 
as well. "The foundations of popery/' says Kewton, 
"were laid indeed in the apostles' days, but the super- 
structure was raised by degrees, and several ages passed 
before the building was completed, and the 'man of 
sin' was revealed in full/' 1 It is a fact well known that 
when the Eoman empire, was smitten, shattered, and 
broken to pieces, the empire of an apostate church, the 
man of sin, was raised on its ruins. John said, "And 
they that dwell on the earth shall wonder . . . when 
they behold the beast, how that he was, and is not, and 
shall become." The Eoman empire, while pagan, was a 
pesecuting power, and was the beast. When she was con- 
verted to Christianity she ceased her persecutions, and 
was not the beast ; but when she became papal Eome she 
again became the beast, as her history clearly shows. 
Eut whether you take Paul's "man of sin" or John's 
ten-horned beast, place them alongside the history of the 
church's apostacy, and you have a living picture of the 
papacy, together with the varied shades of apostacy, no 
difference when and where it developed in church his- 
tory. But the "man of sin" is now in his decline, and 
will ultimately be abolished by the brightness of his 
coming and the breath of his mouth. 

1 Newton, p. 406. 



Character 
of the 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Doctrines and Teachings of the Scriptures 
Accord with the Facts of Human History. 

1. As stated elsewhere in this treatise, the existence 
of God is assumed, and the task of proof is left to the 
theologian. The God of revelation, set forth in the Old 
and New Testament, is a God unique in character, in- The 
finitely wise, just, and holy, and possessed of an utter 
abhorrence of evil, and "that will by no means clear the God of the 
guilty," yet "keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving 
iniquity and transgression and sin." 1 Surely, this ex- 
alted God of the Bible is in strict accord with man's 
highest conception of the divine Being. No truly well- 
informed critic has found fault with the Holy Scrip- 
tures on the ground of the character of its God. Jesus 

Christ, the God-man, the self -rev elation of God, in the 
life he lived on earth, set forth in a true light God mani- 
fest, as he (God) is revealed in the Bible. In him men 
saw, and now see the real God of revelation. Jesus 
appealed to Moses and the prophets as witnesses of his 
Godhood, and put his life before the world as the evi- 
dence that he, in all respects, measured up to what the 
Holy Scriptures recorded respecting the infinite and 
Holy One. 

2. The Old Testament opens its pages with the story 

1 Ex. 34: 7. 



140 Apologetics 

of creation and the dark history of the primitive fam- 
ilies of mankind. The sad Eden story is briefly but 
The Fall of pointedly told. The bad life of Cain and the wicked 
Man ' career of primitive man is pathetically recorded in the 

solemn and warning words, "The Lord saw that the 
wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every 
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil 
continually." "And the Lord said, My Spirit shall 
not strive with man for ever." 1 In this straight, clear, 
declarative style the sacred writers continue to record 
their inspired communications to the close of the sacred 
record. Not one word of palliation is found in the 
holy Book for man's bad and unworthy life; but there 
is a constant stream of utterances setting forth his de- 
praved and wicked life; not one exception is recorded 
in the Book of the whole family of the race, but the 
Christ. "For all have sinned, and fall short of the 
glory of God." 2 "The heart is deceitful above all 
things, and it is desperately wicked." 3 "The heart of 
the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." 4 "There 
is none righteous, no, not one ; there is none that under- 
standeth, there is none that seeketh after God; they 
have all turned aside, they are together become un- 
profitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not so 
much as one: . . . there is no fear of God before 
their eyes." 5 "The heart of the sons of men is full of 
evil, and madness is in their heart." 6 Thus the di- 
vine Word, like a mighty, rushing river, from the begin- 
ning to the close of its pages, pours its accusations 

»Gen. 6: 5; 6: 3. 2 Rom. 3: 23. 3 Jer. 17: 9. *Eccl. 8: 11. 
« Rom. 3: 10-12, 18. 6 Eccl. 9: 3. 



Doctrines and Teachings 141 

against man as a race, and as an individual as well, that 
he is "evil, and only evil continually." 

3. Now, are these charges against man, as set forth 
in the Holy Scriptures, verified in the history of the 
race and in the life of each individual of the race? 
The dark and wicked deeds of men enter into and make 
up much of the history of every tribe, race, and nation 
of peoples. To this statement there is not one excep- 
tion. It is just as true of the civilized as it is of the 
uncivilized, of the cultured and the refined, as it is 
of the savage. The history of war and blood, as it has 



The History 



played its role among the tribes, nations, and families of Man 
of men, is but a record of human sin. The prisons, the J£ e Bibl s e 
executioner's block, and the gallows are a direct wit- Account 
ness to the truth of the charges of evil against him re- J^^cter. 
corded in the holy Book. This is a fact of which the 
world is not ignorant. The sin of the world has been 
the theme of the historian and the sorrow of the mor- 
alist in all the ages. Heathen sages wrote upon the 
nature of virtue and morality, and urged the obligation 
to practice them ; but their own vices demonstrated that 
they were either ignorant of their true nature or utterly 
unable to practice what they taught. Even the prac- 
tices of Socrates were the very opposite in many respects 
of what he taught. 

The pagan world's knowledge of sin and conscious- 
ness of guilt led it into every form of idolatry and de- 
basing orgies, until their altars smoked with the hot 
blood of their human sacrifices. On.an occasion when 
Carthage was to be besieged, says Diodorus, "They im- 
molated in public sacrifice two hundred chosen boys of 



142 Apologetics 

their principal nobility." 1 Justin speaks thus, "They 
immolated men as victims, and children, whose tender 
years excited the pity even of enemies." 2 And while I 
write, a young man from a pagan land who sits by my 
side, says, "Yes, my great-grandfather was buried be- 
tween two living slaves, who should accompany him in 
the spirit world." When Cortez entered the great 
temple in the city of Mexico he saw the walls almost 
covered with human hearts, the warm blood of the poor 
victims dripping therefrom, a sacrifice to their gods. 
Turn to what age you will, or to what quarter of the 
globe you please, you find the sin of man's soul is the 
source of his sorrow. 

"The palaces of the Caesars raised their imperial tur- 
rets to the skies, crowned with matchless magnificence; 
but within they were stained with every species of im- 
purity. It is not possible to read the accounts given 
of these monarchs who held the scepter of the world 
without pity and indignation. The narration of Sue- 
tonius alternately elevates and depresses, informs and 
pollutes the mind of the reader; and if one moment we 
follow the warrior through his victories and participate 
in his triumph, the next discovers him to us in his re- 
tirement, an object of horror and disgust, 'committing 
all manner of uncleanness with greediness. 5 " 3 You 
may well imagine the general contagion and reign of 
vice among the masses and all classes when even Horace 
sacrifices his genius to shameless indecency, and the 
matchless pen of Virgil sullied his pages with wanton 
impurity. 

»Diod. lib. 20. Must. Hist. lib. 18: cb. 6. 'Collyer's lectures, p. 40. 



Doctrines and Teachings 143 

4. But while it must be apparent to all right-minded 
men that, under the reign of the kingdom of God, right- conscious 
eousness is making headway against sin, yet there is j^J?? 31 " 1 
enough of vice in the modern world to verify the truths 
of the Bible in its charge against the race as being sin- 
ners. The daily record of crime under the world's best 
civilization and among its most enlightened peoples is 
indirectly God's daily public witness of the truth of his 
Word on the subject of sin. Modern wars, mob vio- 
lence, drunkenness, fraud, and the low brothels of vice, 
tolerated by the most enlightened Christian nations, to- 
gether with secret and open sins of the masses, both in 
public and in private life at the present hour, are a 
wonderful commentary of the truth of these Scriptures. 

The Holy Bible recognizes man as a triune being — a 
trichotomy in him — soul, body, and spirit. As such, 
the body is the medium between the soul and nature, 
the spirit its medium of relation to the supernatural. 
Sensuous experience comes to the soul through this 
bodily organism, resulting in conscious, definite knowl- 
edge of material phenomena; spiritual experience of 
spiritual,, universal, and eternal phenomena-realities, 
comes to it through its spirit medium. By the former 
it has sense cognitions ; by the latter, reason cognitions. 
The one gives knowledge of the creature; the other of 
the Creator. By the one comes a knowledge of the 
finite; by the other, of the infinite God. These are the 
soul's mediums of knowledge of things, whether mate- 
rial or spiritual, human or divine. Thus constituted, 
he is capacitated to know the truth — divine truth as well 
as human. In this light he is recognized in the Word 



144 Apologetics 

of God, and given the assurance by our blessed Lord 
that "he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of 
God." On this conscious knowledge of the believer Jesus 
was willing to rest his case. 

There is nothing which a man knows so well as the 
life he lives. He knows whether he lives a worthy or a 
double life. He is conscious of the inward impulses of 
his nature and of his liability to be attracted by, and 
his inclination to yield to, forbidden wickedness. He 
is conscious, also, of the fact that too often, contrary to 
reason, to what he believes to be the Word of God, and 
to the voice of conscience; knowingly he walks deliber- 
ately into sin and lives a conscious wicked life; and, 
when entrapped by justice or lashed by a guilty con- 
science, as was King Saul, in the bitterness of his soul 
he cries, "0 wretched man that I am." This conscious- 
ness of sin, although perhaps not always equally well 
understood, has kept pace with the ages, and is as broad 
as the family of mankind. The smoke and incense from 
every pagan altar, as well as every prayer that has as- 
cended from human lips, is a witness to the souPs con- 
scious knowledge of its wickedness and an appeal to 
Heaven for pardon of man's sins. He who informs him- 
self in the Holy Scriptures, and especially in its doc- 
trines of sin in relation to man, then lays the whole 
history of his race, aye, his own personal life history, 
alongside them, cannot but be impressed, as was the 
woman at the well, in her conversation with her Lord, 
namely, that he has found a book that reveals to him all 
that he or all that his race ever did; and a conviction 
will obtain that the mind that made the book is the 



Doctrines and Teachings 145 

mind that made both him and his race. There is not a 
corner or a crevice in the human soul that is not searched 
and exposed by this wonderful Book; and he who thor- 
oughly studies its pages is conscious that his sins are 
not concealed from the mind of its Author. It teaches 
not only that man is a sinner, but that he is personally 
guilty before God on account of his sins. Here, again, 
man's consciousness comes in as a witness to the truth 
of the Word. The altars and the sacrifices of the ages 
are but the evidence and the acknowledgment of the 
soul's wail and bitter sorrow for conscious guilt. 

5. This sacred Book witnesses not alone against man 
as a sinner. If it did only this, it would be a sad book, 
indeed, to him, for this he knows, hence it would reveal 
no new truth to him ; it would only confirm him in his 
conviction of sin. But the Book does not stop here ; it The Bible 
goes forward and tells him how he may get rid of his offers 
sins and secure pardon for them. Moreover, it tells him peace to 
how, and gives him the assurance that he shall come Man - 
into possession of conscious knowledge of pardoned sins 
and peace with God. "We know that we have passed 
out of death into life." 1 

Man's dual nature is such that upon him is ever two 
classes of wants. His physical nature demands food 
and raiment. His spirit, to which belongs the intellec- 
tual and the moral, has its wants. Now, as the experi- 
ences of life are enlarged and the field of thought is 
broadened, in the moral nature of man springs up a 
consciousness of the moral or the immoral quality of his 
actions. This sense of wrong-doing always produces in 

1 1. John 3: 14. 
10 



146 Apologetics 

the actor conditions of unrest. Also, the noblest im- 
pulses and aspirations of the soul are inadequately met 
by all things earthly, and at every step in life the wants 
increase more and more, and the world's utter insuffi- 
ciency to meet them becomes more and more evident. 
Now, just as the hungry man knows that the food which 
he takes satisfies his hunger, so also the man who com- 
plies with the conditions of salvation set forth in the 
sacred Scriptures, knows that the religion of Christ 
meets his moral want, and that the sacred Word is a 
revelation from God. For there is a hidden truth con- 
tained in the religion of the Cross, which, through faith 
in the believer, leads him up into conscious knowledge 
of pardoned sins, peace with God, and that the Word is 
truth. "I will give him a white stone, and upon the 
stone a new name written, which no one knoweth but 
he that receiveth it." 1 This is the secret of the church's 
power, and has sustained the martyr at the stake and 
lifted the impure and profane into the happy condition 
of holiness and peace. Bearing on this subject, says 
Luther, "God, therefore, must witness to thee in thy 
heart that 'this is God's Word.' " 2 Also says the same 
great and good man, in speaking of the witness of the 
Spirit, "This testimony takes place in this way, namely, 
that as the Spirit works in us through the Word, we feel 
and become conscious of his power, and of the agree- 
ment of our experience with the word or declaration of 
the gospel." This statement is the experience of every 
true believer, and witnesseth to the truth of God's Word. 

1 Rev. 2: 17. 2 Sprecher's Theology, pp. 102-104. 



CHAPTER X. 

The Superiority of Christianity Over Other Re- 
ligions and Its Intrinsic Worth a Proof 
of Its Divine Origin. 

1. Systems of religion are many. A fiber of gold 
may run through them all, but they are not equally 
good. Religions, like systems of philosophy and ma- 
chinery, must be tested by what they do. A system of 
philosophy that begets dissensions and degrades man, is Religions 
condemned as bad. A piece of machinery, it may be w e ^ a t Tn e y 
the farmer's plow, or the carpenter's plane, is judged Do. 

as to its merit, by the manner in which it does its 
work; and that is always pronounced the best which 
does its work the best. Just so with religions ; that is 
best which gives the highest, the purest, and most per- 
fect and upright type of civilized man. Christianity 
has not had an open field on which to fight its battles. 
At the time of its introduction the whole world was 
pagan, except Israel, which was but a remnant then. 
These pagan religions had been in the field long, and 
their merits well tested, even before the advent, but 
surely they were not satisfactory. 

2. The best systems of paganism are full of defects. 
Their conceptions of God were remarkably coarse and 
crude. Even Socrates, who was the purest and wisest 
of the pagan world, while he believed in a supreme God, 

147 



148 



Apologetics 



Imperfec- 
tions of 
Pagan 
Religions. 



believed also "in lords many and gods many." As a 
rule, the god or gods even of the most cultivated of the 
Gentile nations were clothed with the corrupt and base 
passions of men, and took delight in human sacrifice. 
In truth, few of the heathen world did not have, at some 
time in their history, either directly or indirectly, hu- 
man sacrifices connected with their worship. There are 
a great want and woe felt in the soul of man that pagan 
worship has never satisfied. I care not whether it be the 
religion of our ancestors or the religion of the Egyp- 
tians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Chinese, or the 
Indians, their conceptions of God, his attributes, and 
their worship were most confused and unworthy, and 
wholly out of accord with enlightened reason. The 
Persians, followers of their sage, Zoroaster, worshiped 
the sun, or light, because he brought day and banished 
the frosts of winter and revivified the dead earth with 
the bloom of summer. But night brought rest to man, 
and ought to share in his reverence, hence the moon 
worshipers shouted, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." 
These were but two of the heavenly host, hence they 
divided the empire of the universe between two antago- 
nistic deities. A kindred conception also obtained among 
the pantheistic worshipers of India. Of all the an- 
cient civilized nations, none were greater than the Egyp- 
tians, and in religion none were more excessive than 
they. About the middle of the fifth century B. C, 
Herodotus visited Egypt. In speaking of their re- 
ligion, he said, "It was easier to find a god in Egypt 
than a man," and that they were "religious to excess." 
Polytheism had set in at an early period in human his- 



The /Superiority of Christianity 149 

tory, and in Egypt deification was almost without limit. 
The same thing was true among the Greeks and the Ro- 
mans. No sooner had the human mind conceived the 
counterpart of its imaginary god in nature than fol- 
lowed Apollo, Hercules, and Diana ; and, in its infatua- 
tion, every object on earth, in sea, or sky was deified 
under the names of Jupiter, Saturn, Juno, Neptune, and 
Venus, until the catalogue was almost infinite. On 
other subjects they reasoned like philosophers, but on 
God and religion like fools. The attributes of their 
deities were, in many respects, monstrous. A veil must 
cover the principles and vile acts of these pretended 
deities. The cheek of innocence would blush at the re- 
cital of the tales of shame in the ear of modesty. All 
this shame and gross impurity, uncleanness, and the 
most detestable vices were ascribed by these sons of rea- 
son and philosophy to the invisible and holy God of 
the universe. Each of the pagan nations recognized that 
there was one supreme deity who was chief among all 
the gods, yet always differed as to which was the chief, 
hence discord and a lack of harmony obtained among 
them. 

3. No person who has read the unexpurgated clas- 
sics, and especially the "Satires" of Juvenal, will, for Pagan 
a moment, question the faithfulness of the keen, incis- 
ive charges of St. Paul in the first chapter of his Epistle 
to the Romans. As a rule, his picture is everywhere true 
to pagan life. The pictures on the walls in Pompeii 
tell a wonderful, but sad story of pagan impurity. There 
was not a vice included under the name lasciviousness 
that "was not sanctioned, encouraged, and practiced 



Religions 
Immoral. 



150 Apologetics 

under the holy and venerable name of religion." "The 
more infamous the rites, the more acceptable were they 
supposed to be to the Deity." 

It is difficult to conceive that our ancestors offered 
their innocent children as sacrifices to their gods. Yes, 
our ancestors, the Druids, had an enormous image in 
which they consumed their victims, and then scattered 
their ashes over the soil. Not only by burning, but by 
the most cruel and inhuman methods did they offer their 
human sacrifices, and their dark religious orgies are 
scarcely paralleled in history by any other race. 

China numbers about one-fourth of the family of 
mankind. Confucius is her sage. He was a moralist, 
and taught much that was good, but he made no pre- 
tensions to reveal the invisible. His great struggle was 
to revise the old customs and laws of his ancestors, from 
which, he claimed, his nation had departed. He was 
devout and sincere, and some have said that the Golden 
Rule is found in his teachings. True, he was the author 
of precepts not without value, both ethical and political ; 
but with him, as with every other ethnic teacher to whom 
it is ascribed, it is found, if found at all, in a negative 
form, or in connection with some other precept or prin- 
ciple from which it may be deduced. But place his 
teachings side by side with the teachings of Jesus of 
Nazareth, and they fade into confusion. Great as has 
been his influence in the past, his star is now waning. 
There are not in his system those elements of expansion 
essential to keep abreast with an advancing age, and 
which are found to exist in Christianity. 

4. But what did any one or all of these religions ac- 



The /Superiority of Christianity 151 

complish for mankind ? In not one instance did they The snperi- 
develop a true civilization. They developed literature, cn^uan 116 
science, philosophy, and art, but morality and purity Religion 
in the individual life and in society, which are essential j^w^t? 
to a true and noble civilization, they developed not. snipers and 
Their peoples were like the gods they worshiped. True, Nation. 1 
those ages produced men who wrote well, and who re- 
corded some worthy moral precepts, but the history of 
those times shows that the private character of those who 
wrote them was the very opposite of the precepts they 
gave for others and the principles which they recorded. 
Among the nations of antiquity, where do you find the 
highest type of man, and a government where the rights 
of all are respected ? Not the Assyrian, not the Egyptian, 
not in India, not in China, nor in Greece, nor in Rome. 
Each of these has had its government, but not in any 
one of them have the civil rights of all been respected. 
Each has had its great men, but not one whose life was 
without fault. Out of the slave-pens of Egypt, God took 
the man, Moses, to organize a model government in 
Israel, in which the rights of all were respected, the 
model government of antiquity. What nation had a 
lawgiver like Moses? What people produced a char- 
acter like Job? Whence came the prophets? Aye, 
from what race sprang the "faultless Man," Jesus, the 
Nazarene ? Israel was homed midway between the East 
and the West, on the world's great battlefield, and there 
served, both in her religion and laws, as the lighthouse 
of Jehovah to illuminate the world. What made Israel 
the model government of the ancient world? Her re- 



152 



Apologetics 



Cnristianity 
Perfect In 
Morals and 
Adapted to 
Meet all the 
Spiritual 
Needs of 
Man. 



ligion. She had the best religion, and it is religion that 
determines the statics, both of man and his government. 
This has been true in all ages. It is true now. Religion, 
like man, is known by its fruits. In the modern world, 
where do we find the highest type of man and the best 
form of government? Is it in China? in India? or in 
Africa? No, but within the belt of nations known as 
Christian. Here is where man is most highly civilized ; 
here no altar smokes with human sacrifices; here the 
rights of man are respected and home is the garden of 
God. And why ? Because here is the best religion — the 
Christian religion. These Christian nations and this 
Christian civilization are the product of Christ's re- 
ligion which he gave to man. 

5. Christianity, in its breadth and moral purity, dif- 
fers from all other religions in this: it includes every 
virtue and moral precept belonging to every other re- 
ligion, and is free from every defect, moral or other- 
wise, that attaches to all other religions. This is its 
triumph. Its morality is pure, vital, intelligible, per- 
sonal, and adapted to the most humble capacity. It is 
founded in knowledge, and is not the offspring of igno- 
rance. Its appeals are to reason and to conscious knowl- 
edge. Knowledge alone is not religion, but without it, 
true religion cannot exist. All other religions are more 
or less clothed in mystery. Their theology is a system 
of complex, incomprehensible theories, if intelligible at 
all, only to the philosopher and the priest, while the 
humble masses are imposed upon with grossest fables 
as a substitute for religion, of which Buddhism, Mo- 
hammedanism, and Confucianism are now striking illus- 



The Superiority of Christianity 153 

trations. But Christianity is the consolation alike of 
the poor and of the rich. The gospel "is no respecter of 
persons." It has no mysteries, dark to a plain under- 
standing, and fathomable only by the philosopher; no 
mysteries but such as are necessarily beyond the limited 
comprehension of human reason ; therefore, equally mys- 
terious and obscure to the wise and to the unwise. The 
fundamental principles and precepts descend to the un- 
cultivated capacity of the "way faring man" as their 
competent judge. Christianity includes all as guilty 
before God. "For all have sinned, and fall short of 
the glory of God." "Through one man sin entered into 
the world, and death through sin; and so death passed 
unto all men, for that all have sinned." 1 So, also, it 
includes all in its redemptive scheme. The religion 
of Jesus Christ adapts itself to every want and condi- 
tion of all men, and it hides the poor under the shadow 
of its broad wings from every ill and injury of life. 
One of its most glorious triumphs is, not only that it 
gives life and cheer as it develops in the soul of the 
believer, but that its comforts and consolations are abid- 
ing, even unto death, for in the history of Christianity 
there is not one case on record or in tradition where a 
Christian at death regretted that he had lived a disciple 
of his blessed Lord. Here is its grand victory! It is 
equally suited to the east, the west, the north, and the 
south; it alike meets the needs of the Eskimo and the 
South Sea Islander, Caucasian and African. Each is 
included in the charge it brings against man, each life 
lived has justified the charge, and each individual mem- 

1 Rom.3: 23; 5: 12. 



154 Apologetics 

ber of the whole family of mankind is equally interested 
in the discoveries it makes of "life and immortality 
brought to light'' by its Founder. How different all 
this from the teachings of paganism. Buddhism ex- 
horts to renounce the desire of a future life. Karma 
knows nothing of continued personal identity and im- 
mortality. Nirvana dissolves conscious identity here- 
after. Says T. W. Ehys Davids of the Buddhistic re- 
ligion, "In it we have an ethical system, but no lawgiver, 
a world without a creator, a salvation without eternal 
life, and a sense of evil, but no conception of pardon, 
atonement, reconciliation, or redemption." 1 Plato, wise 
and great in philosophy, plodded his way up the mist- 
enshrouded coast of ontology to the throne of the In- 
finite, yet he could give no satisfactory answer how to 
get rid of evil and become like God. He conceived ig- 
norance to be the chief source of sin, and philosophy 
the panacea for all such maladies, but, alas ! he taught 
that only a few could attain to such knowledge. 

6. The schools of the Epicureans and the Stoic phi- 

AjSnfsSt* 7 l° so P ners dominated the Roman Empire in the opening 

Forth a century of the Christian era, and this empire was, in 

ideaTand a a sense > * ne then civilized world. It was in the face 

Perfect Ex- of these schools and their teachers and pupils, on the 

ample for one j ian ^ an( j #& rabbinical schools and their teachers, 

on the other, that Christianity was introduced to the 

world. This also was the age and the world empire in 

which literature, philosophy, and paganism reached their 

culmination in the ancient world. Here and then it 

fought its first battles. It was these Epicureans and 

1 T. W. Rhys Davids, in Non-Christian ReUgions, page 131. 



The Superiority of Christianity 155 

Stoics with whom St. Paul disputed in Athens. The 
resurrection of the dead, and immortality were so foreign 
to their conceptions that when he referred to the sub- 
ject, "some mocked; but others said, We will hear thee 
concerning this yet again." 1 The charge that Paul 
makes against the Athenians, that "the city was full of 
idols," is verified by the history of the world in that 
age. The Epicureans taught a system of morality which 
made pleasure the highest good and the only true hap- 
piness of life ; hence all action should be directed to this 
end. It was strictly materialistic and atheistic. Car- 
ried out to its last analysis, it gives fruit such as ob- 
tained in society during the Eoman emperors, the En- 
glish deists, and the French encyclopaedists — a beastly 
debauchery and imbecile stupidity. The Stoic philos- 
ophy was better, and developed better morals among its 
disciples. The three greatest were Seneca, the advocate, 
and greatest literary character of his age, Epictetus, the 
slave, and Marcus Aurelius, the emperor. These, in 
many respects, were noble men, but their teachings were 
for the philosophers, and not for the mass of humanity. 
The morality they taught was remarkably imperfect, as 
each for himself well knew and was painfully conscious 
of the sad fact. As a result, their teachings were pow- 
erless to rouse the people and to stir the consciences of 
the profligate and wicked and lead them to a better life. 
Their system had no well-grounded hope of immortality, 
and was without a faultless example among its dis- 
ciples. It swept from the human heart all desire, all 
passion, all pity ; it had eyes, but no tears ; a heart, but 

£Acts 17: 32. 



156 Apologetics 

no emotions; it was cold, proud, and haughty, with af- 
fected insensibility and imaginary wisdom. "A perfect 
Stoic would be sterile, useless, inhuman."' This is not 
Christianity, that weeps with those that weep, and re- 
joices with those who rejoice. "In contrast with all the 
ancient systems of philosophy, Christianity brought for- 
ward such a conception of God, that the precept to be 
like him was intelligible, and could be profitably obeyed. 
It brought forward the truth of a providence of God, 
extending over all persons and events, a universal care 
comprehending the least of God's creatures, and causing 
all things to conspire to promote the well-being of his 
children. Natural sensibility is not petrified. Natural 
affections and emotions are left in healthy activity, but 
trust in the fatherly love and wisdom of God enables the 
afflicted to be at peace. Moreover, in distinction from 
all other religions and philosophies, Christianity pro- 
vides redemption. That is to say, while it holds up the 
ideal of perfection, the law of righteousness, it provides, 
at the same time, effectual means of attaining, through 
Jesus Christ, to the partial, and, ultimately, to the com- 
plete realization of it. 

When the incomparable superiority of the Christian 
system over the other religions of the world and over 
the highest achievements of philosophy is duly appre- 
ciated, it appears unreasonable to think that Christianity 
sprang from the unaided intelligence of the humble, un- 
lettered Hebrews who were the instruments of publish- 
ing its truths to the world." 1 

1 Fisher's Manual of Christian Evidences, p. 112. 



CHAPTER XL 

Some Objections of the Honest Doubter to 
Christianity Answered. 

The sacred Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, 

claim to be a revelation of facts from God, as Father, 

to man, as his child. Men are the recorders of this 

revelation. Each writer tells his own story in his own 

way, not to demonstrate a proposition, but to state facts. Authors 

In the mind of the author, and the recorder as ^well, of 2 nd tJ * e 

' * Recorders 

these facts the thought is nowhere hinted that they ofReveia- 
were to be questioned, disputed, or to be proved, but g i0 ° s^p 1 ^ 
simply accepted and obeyed. And on no other hypothe- 
sis can the marvelous success of the gospel in the first 
century better be accounted for than on the fact that 
the disciples and the first preachers of the gospel acted 
upon the above principle. They "preached the Word." 
The age of controversy came later. Doubt assumed a 
formidable attitude towards the sacred Scriptures. 
Apologetics were written to dispel the doubt of the hon- 
est doubter and to bring in higher favor the Word of 
God. Just as in these Scriptures the existence of God 
is assumed, not by cogent argument proved, so Moses The Pur- 
and the prophets, Christ and his apostles, assumed to Jp i getics 
state as facts what they said and recorded, but tarried is to 
not to prove them true by argument, claiming that to ^JJJjT 
comply brought conscious knowledge of the truth stated Doubt. 

157 



158 



Apologetics 



Why Were 
Not Christ's 
Credentials 
so Attested 
As to Pass 
Unchal- 
lenged! 1 



to the doer. This fact is too often overlooked or lost 
sight of, even by the honest doubter, for it ought to 
be remembered that in religion as in mathematics, there 
are some things axiomatic. Said Jesus, "If any man 
willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, 
whether it be of God, or whether I speak from myself." 
Just as the best evidence a man can have, whose sense of 
taste is normal, that the apple is sour is to taste it, so 
the sacred writers assumed that the highest evidence a 
man can have that their messages are Heaven-sent is to 
'obey them. 

But to the honest doubter's objections: "If Christ 
were really the Son of God, sent to save the world, why 
were not his credentials so attested that they would pass 
unchallenged ?" the objector 'urges : "Little time is spent 
in the examination and discussion of the credentials 
of the representative of one government sent on some 
mission to another, because they are so clearly and un- 
equivocally avouched that the above inspection is suffi- 
cient to satisfy those to whom they are addressed of 
their genuineness. In other words, they answer per- 
fectly the purpose for which they were given. The 
credentials of Christ are still in dispute, although they 
have been under inspection for almost two thousand 
years." At first sight, this objection is not without 
force. But when it is critically examined, and the facts 
involved duly stated, the criticism breaks down. The 
cases are not parallel. The political governments of 
earth have knowledge of the existence of each other, but 
the kingdom of God, which Jesus came to represent, 
was a government unknown to men. At least, it was 



/Some Objections 159 

then, and now is admitted that he was the only repre- 
sentative who claimed to have come down from heaven 
to represent that government in that unknown country. 
In the second place, his credentials: 

(1) At his birth/ an angel from heaven proclaimed Announced 
him Heaven's ambassador. "For there is born to you by Angels. 
this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ 

the Lord." 1 Also, a star led the "wise men" to the 
manger in Bethlehem where he was. "And lo, the star, 
which they saw in the east, went before them, till it 
came and stood over where the young child was." 2 
These supernatural occurrences, recorded by the evan- 
gelist as facts, were believed by all who witnessed them, 
or, at least, there is no record from that century that they 
were even questioned. 

(2) The works which he performed were presented 
by him as his credentials. "If I do not the works of my 
Father, believe me not. But if I do them, though ye 
believe not me, believe the works : that ye may know and 
understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Fa- 
ther." 3 This, perhaps, had no reference to any one 
particular class of works, but to all the acts which he 
performed. Some were natural, others supernatural — Appealed to 

his miracles. The eleventh chapter of Matthew opens His works 

As Cre- 
with the information that "when Jesus had made an aentials. 

end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed 

thence to teach and preach in their cities." To him 

came John's disciples and asked, "Art thou he that 

cometh, or look we for another?" Jesus said, "Tell 

John, . . . the blind receive their sight, and the 

1 Luke 2: 11. a Matt. 2:9. s John 10: 37, 38. 



160 



Apologetics 



lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf 
hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have 
good tidings preached to them." 1 JSTow, the cases 
of Jesus miraculously restoring sight to the blind 
are recorded as follows: Matt. 9:27-30; 11:5; 12: 
2; 21:14; of Bartimaeus, 20:30-34; Mark 10:46- 
52 ; 8 : 22-25 ; of a man at Bethsaida, a man born 
blind, John 9 : 1-7. Also, the cases in which he restored 
persons' hearing, Mark 7 : 37 ; 9 : 25. In which he raised 
the dead : widow's son, Luke 7 : 12-15 ; Jairus's daugh- 
ter, Luke 8:49-55; Lazarus, John 11:43, 44. Lepers 
The Fact of neal ed by Christ : Matt. 8:3; Mark 1 : 40-42 ; Luke 5 : 
Christ's 13; 17 : 12-14. He healed all manner of diseases among 
Not Ques- the people in a miraculous wa} r , and cast out demons 
tioned by from the possessed, and he commanded the winds and 
poraries. " the sea, and they obeyed him. 2 The reality of these 
miracles wrought by Christ were not questioned by the 
eye-witnesses, but were acknowledge by them as matters 
of fact. True, some who witnessed attributed them to 
satanic agencies: "But some of them said, By Beelze- 
bub, the prince of the devils, casteth he out devils." 3 
As hinted above, it was not the men who witnessed the 
miracles performed by Christ who doubted their reality. 
They recognized them as genuine, but the age of doubt 
came later, just as doubts respecting other facts in his- 
tory. We have an illustration in the writings of Shakes- 
peare. In his day, his authorship of the writings which 
bore his name was not questioned, but the nineteenth 
century has produced volumes to disprove his author- 
ship of those same writings. The same is true of Menes, 

1 Matt. 11:1. 2 Matt. 8: 26-34. 3 Luke 11: 15. 



Some Objections 161 

the founder of the first dynasty of united Egypt, and 
also of King Minos, whose home and capital, according 
to Greek tradition, was located at Cnosus, on the island 
of Crete. Skeptical criticism has long since banished 
both these to the land of myth. But the recent discov- 
eries at Abydos reveal the fact that "Menes and his 
successors were living in the full bloom of a civilization 
which was already old." Also, of King Minos, the dis- 
coveries of the past year by Mr. A. J. Evans, on the 
island of Crete, "have proved that the story of his power 
and civilization, instead of being mythical, really fell 
short of the truth, and that Cnosus was the chief seat 
of culture known as 'Mykenean' in the days when the 
eighteenth dynasty ruled over Egypt." The men who 
lived in the days of these kings, and were their subjects, 
had no doubts respecting the real existence of those 
monarchies and the acts performed by Menes and Minos. 
But the age of doubt came later, and so increased until 
doubt ripened into unbelief, and swept them from the 
domain of history. This is a fact that must not be 
overlooked, namely, that the men of one age cannot 
believe for men of succeeding ages. They can record 
the facts of history, political and religious, of the age 
in which they live, and, in so far as they are concerned, 
the matter rests there. It is just so with Jesus of Naz- 
areth. He came to earth, the ambassador of the king- 
dom of God ; he presented, as the seal of his ambassador- 
ship, his miracles, organized that kingdom, pushed his 
religion into history, and has left it for the ages to dem- 
onstrate his heavenly mission. 

Now, it is beyond the power of the human intellect to 
11 



162 



Apologetics 



The Cre- 
dentials 
Christ 
Presented 
Were the 
Highest 
Conceivable 
to Human 
Reason. 



conceive of any higher proof of Christ's divine mission 
than the credentials (miracles) and his own personality 
which he presented. Here two things must be taken 
into the account : first, as implied in a former statement, 
the country and kingdom which he came to represent 
was unknown to the children of earth, except only in 
so far as they had learned from the Hebrew Scriptures ; 
second, the message which he brought to man was a 
message condemning both the then existing governments 
of earth and the religions of paganism and the religious 
lives of the people to whom he came. He laid the axe 
at the root of the tree, paganism and the false religious 
life of the peoples, and, at the same time, claimed uni- 
versal sovereignty for the government which he repre- 
sented, and demanded the annihilation of all of earth's 
religious systems then existing, and proclaimed the ulti- 
mate, universal acceptance of his own, and himself as 
King of kings and Lord of lords. I would, in the spirit 
of my Lord, ask the honest doubter : If an ambassador 
from any known government on earth were to present 
his credentials to the government of Great Britain, and 
set up claims for his government and make demands 
such as did Jesus of Nazareth upon the governments of 
earth, would his credentials be likely to receive higher 
recognition than Christ's did ? Would not some doubt ? 
And would not likely more doubters arise as the world 
would recede from the date of the event? It is said, 
"The credentials of Christ are still in dispute, although 
they have been under inspection for almost two thou- 
sand years." How long would the credentials of the 
ambassador supposed be "under inspection" by the gov- 



Some Objections 



163 



eminent of Great Britain before she would recognize 
them? Not until England's navy was swept from the 
seas, and her army dismantled of its broken shields. 
The recognition of the Christ as Heaven's ambassador 
is one thing, but surrendering a life of obedience to his 
demands is quite different. Judging from the course of 
the world in his day, and now, the latter seems to be 
the more difficult for man. There are many ten thou- 
sands of peoples in almost every Christian land who 
believe Jesus to be the world's Eedeemer and Lord, and 
that to be saved and not perish they must surrender 
themselves to him and live a pure and worthy life, yet 
they do not make that surrender and do not live that 
pure and worthy life, but live in the daily open viola- 
tion of what they believe to be God's Word and displeas- 
ing to Jesus Christ, whose credentials they recognize 
as from God. All this is a matter of conscious knowl- 
edge to them. 

(3) In the personality of Jesus and the life which 
he lived is great weight of evidence. Christ Jesus is 
greater than any or all of the works he did, or the marv- 
elous life he lived. He stands the Colossus, unap- 
proached and unapproachable among the sons of men. 
He taught that all men should repent, but he repents 
not. He lays sin at the door of every man of the race, 
but asks, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" His 
life was spotless. Born amid the degeneracy of his 
race, and in an age of lust and shame, he lived and 
wrought in the interest of the degraded and sinful, un- 
touched and untarnished by the vices of men. No one 
like him lived before his day, and no one since his day. 



164 Apologetics 

Account for everything in him and about him on natural 
principles as far as you can, yet there stands the sinless 
Christ, the friend of sin Tiers, as he represented himself 
to he. Xow, I believe the evidences of Christianity are 
so convincing, and especially the personality of Jesus 
Evidence anc ^ t ^ e miracles which he performed, as recorded in 
Sufficient to the four Gospels, that any man who will examine them 
au wno carefully with a view to obeying the teachings of Christ, 
Are Willing if convinced they are true, will always attain to a faith 
or belief sufficient for a working basis, and if he does 
not, I would say that responsibility for the lack of faith 
does not obtain in his case, just as a man who is color- 
blind is not responsible for not being able to distinguish 
colors. But there is one thing for which he is respon- 
sible, namely, the life he lives, for it must be remem- 
bered that Christ requires only the life every man should 
live, which life is for the highest good of the individual 
and of society. In his own words, "Love thy neighbour 
as thyself," 1 and in "all things therefore whatsoever ye 
would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also 
unto them ; for this is the law and the prophets/' 2 This 
is the very soul of human duty. Also, the prophet puts 
the gist of what every life should be in the sight of God 

in these terse words, "He hath shewed thee, man, tvhat 
Doubt Does 
Not Release is good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to 

Man from fo justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with 
Obligation thy God?" 3 Every man is morally bound by the laws 

to obey God f soc i e ty to live such a life as is here described, whether 

and Serve 

His Fellow- he is an honest doubter or a dishonest doubter; and 

Men. Christianity demands at his hand no more than the 

1 Mark 12: 31. 2 Matt. 7: 12. 3 Mich.6: 8. 



Some Objections 165 

rights of man, and the highest interests of society de- 
mand of him in the character of the life which he ought 
to live. The author of nature gives no man beforehand 
an absolute guarantee that he shall reap a harvest from 
the seed which he casts into the ground; he only gives 
him a guarantee amounting to a probability that if he 
sows he shall reap. This probability is his working 
basis. But he has a positive assurance that if he does 
not sow he shall not reap. Now, if he lingers in doubt 
and does not sow, he must perish for the want of bread. 
This is the sense of Christ's words, "He that disbelieveth 
shall be condemned/' He who lives a wicked, sinful life 
has the evidence of condemnation within himself, and 
he has conscious knowledge, growing out of his own 
experience, that his bad passions of sin are growing 
stronger, and that he is gradually sinking into a pit, 
in so far as he knows, of endless ruin. 

But it may be, in justice, further stated that imper- 
fect as are the Christian governments of earth, the man 
who lives up to the letter of their requirements is, to say Analogy 

the least, not far from the kingdom of God. It is a J? 1 ? 6 , 

' & Civil L&vr. 

fact recognized that their laws and courts of law are 
based upon the sacred Scriptures. Now, as a rule, the 
man whose life is out of accord with civil law, which, 
as stated, is based upon the Word of God; that is, the 
man who is guilty of theft, murder, adultery, defraud- 
ing his neighbor, or any other violation of law, is dealt 
with by the courts and punished according to the laws 
of the government. Now, these courts do not stop to 
consider whether the prisoner believed or disbelieved 
God's law or the civil law, which is based on God's law ; 



166 Apologetics 

whether he was a doubter or a believer, "but they simply 
determine whether his life is, or is not such as every 
man's must be to stand acquitted before the law; that 
is, whether his life is such as the rights of man and the 
highest interests of society demand of every man, even 
if there were not a God in the universe, and condemn 
or justify him accordingly. These civil courts clearly 
recognize that "doubts, honest as they may be, seldom, if 
ever, are the cause of a man's bad life or a justification 
of it. They adjudge him guilty on the ground that he 
had conscious knowledge, that his acts were wrong, and 
that he had the opportunity and power to have done 
otherwise had he chosen to do so. Kespecting Christ and 
his credentials as ambassador from the court of heaven 
to earth, a distinguished judge says: "My own theory 
in the matter is, that it is not a question of logic any 
more than the axiom that 'things equal to the same 
thing are equal to each other' is the subject of mathe- 
matical demonstration. That Christ lives and is the 
Saviour of the world is as hard to prove by argument 
as it would be to prove that the friend whom you may 
introduce to another is really present and existent. He 
to whom your friend is introduced knows he exists and 
is present; his whole consciousness testifies to the fact. 
That is the highest degree of proof." He further adds : 
"It seems to me we are apt to exalt reason above its 
true place among the faculties of the mind. Eeason 
and intuition, as it seems to me, are, in a sense, antago- 
nistic faculties, one of which can be developed at the 
expense of the other. Of the two, intuition, to me, seems 
to be the higher faculty. For while reason, from the 



Some Objections 167 

same evidence, may lead two men in exactly opposite di- 
rections, intuition is either silent or will guide to the 
right unerringly." 

Proofs and argument in the field of Christian evi- 
dences, it is true, have their place, and are of high im- 
portance, but the vital experience of saving faith is vital 
deeper and broader than argument, and the fact that Experience 
the Christian has conscious knowledge that Christ Jesus i s Above 
saves him from his sins, and is saving the world, is the Argument. 
highest possible proof that he came from God and is 
accomplishing his divine commission. 



INDEX. 



Age of Christianity, 77. 

Alexandrian Philosophy, 78. 

Ambassador, 60, 82. 

Apologist, 7, 11. 

Apostles, 82. 

Aristides, Apology of, 34. 

Athanasius, 33. 

Augustine, 33. 

Aurelius, 155. 

Authority of Holy Scriptures, 18. 

Authenticity of Scripture, 18. 

Authors of Scripture, 46. 

Barnabas, 24. 

Bible, Criticisms of, 14. 

Divine Origin of, 7. 

God's Book, 49. 

Wonders of, 18. 

See Scripture. 
Bram, 14. 
Butler, 43, 105. 

Canon, New Testament, 32, 33. 
Celsus, 28, 29, 110. 
Cerinthus, 26, 29, 36. 
Channing, 113, 117, 
Christ, 7. 

Confidence in Self and His Plans, 
113. 

Did Not Argue, 114. 

Evidence Sufficient, 164. 

His Character, 108, 163. 

His Credentials, 158. 

His Mission, 114. 

His Methods, 109. 

Historic, 107. 

Independent of His Age, 107. 



Christ— Continued. 

Influence of His Teachings, 109, 
117. 

Life of, Solitary, 108. 

Made No Mistakes, 115. 

Messenger Sent From God, 114. 

Not the Product of His Environ- 
ment, 112. 

Opposed Conceptions of Jews, 109. 

RevealedBrotherhoodofMan,lll. 

Self-Revelation of God, 107. 

Suffering Foretold, 113. 

Vastness of His Conceptions, 110. 
Christian Evidences, 7. 
Christianity- 
Admitted Facts, 99. 

Adapted to Man's Need, 152. 

Displaced Religions in Roman 
Empire, 102. 

Gives a Perfect Ideal and Perfect 
Life, 154. 

Has the Highest Civilization, 151. 

Is It Supernatural ? 7. 

Perfect Morals, 150. 

Superior to Other Religions, 160. 
Church Councils, 103. 
Clement, 24. 
Constantine, 102. 
Council of Laodicea, 33. 
Council of Carthage, 33. 
Curetonian Version, 36. 
Cyprian, 25. 
Cyril, 33. 
Cyrus, the Great, 131. 

Diatessaron, 35 
Dictation Theory, 46. 



170 



Apologetics 



Diodorus, 16, 22, 141. 
Dionysius, 25. 
Divine Origin of Bible, 7. 
Docetse, 38. 

Doctrines of Scriptures, 139. 
Concerning Pardon, 145. 
Concerning Man's Sin and Guilt, 

143. 
Confirmed by History, 141. 
Regarding Man, 140. 
Self-Consciousness of Man, 143. 
The God of, 139. 
Doubt, 157, 164. 

Dynamical Theory of Inspiration, 
46. 

Ebionites, 37. 
Ego, 8. 

Epicurean Philosophy, 78. 
Eusebius, 32, 35, 37. 
Evidences, 7. 
Existence of God, 7. 
Ezra Collected Old Testamen* 
Books, 31. 

Fatherhood of God, 8. 
Fathers, Church, 24; 
Farrar, 47, 55. 
Fisher, 156. 
Future Life, 13. 

Gibson, Mrs., Found Syrian Ver- 
sion, 36. 
God, Attributes of, 9, 20. 

A Spirit, 8. 

Existence of, 8. 

Not Bound by Nature or Fate, 70. 
Goethe, 57. 
Gospel of Peter, 37. 

Heathenism, 15. 
Heresy, 37, 38. 
Hermes, 24. 
Herodotus, 148. 
Hierocles, 28, 29, 92. 
Historic Christ, 107. 
Historic, Revelation, 9. 
History, Claim of Scriptures, 9. 



Hittites, 40. 
Hyksos, 41. 
Hume, David, 11, 119. 

Ideal Character, 107. 
Ignatius, 24. 
Illumination, 47. 
Immortality, 12, 13. 
Inspiration of Scriptures, 45. 

Claims of, 49. 

Comparison of Theories, 48. 

Definition, 48. 

Dictation or Mechanical, 46. 

Dynamical Theory, 46. 

Essential Theory, 47. 

Faultless Life of Christ a Proof, 
57. 

Illumination Theory, 47. 

Inspiration of Old Testament 
Recognized, 50. 

Jews Accepted It, 52. 

Manner in Which God Spake to 
Men, 45. 

Nature of Contents Proves, 54. 

New Testament Claims, 52. 

Old Testament Claims, 49. 

Ordinary Inspiration, 47. 

Relation and Authenticity, 45. 

Writers' Claim, 53. 
Irseneus, 25, 34, 36, 54. 

Jerome, 25, 93. 

Jerusalem, 136. 

Jesus Christ- 
Faultless, 58. 
Methods of, 10, 23. 
See Christ. 

Jews- 
Ancient, 21. 
Hated Race, 127. 

Josephus, 22, 23, 29. 

Julian, 26, 29, 92. 

Justin, 16, 22. 

Justin, Martyr, 35, 39, 54. 

Koran, 15. 
Knowledge, 59. 



Index 



171 



Law— 

Of Life and Gravitation, 68. 

Not Violated in Revelation, 10. 
Lardner, 26, 29, 32, 33. 
Lewis, Mrs., 36. 
Light of Nature, 12. 
Lycurgus, 15. 

Man, 8, 10. 
Marcion, 38. 
Miracles- 
Age of Intelligent, 77. 

Apostles Worked, 82. 

Christ's Credentials, 60, 162. 

Cover Long Period, 84. 
; Credibility and Intent, 59, 63. 

Definition of, GO. 

Distinguished from Extraordi- 
nary Occurrences, 61. 

Enemies Admitted, 91. 

Expectation of, 63. 

God Not Bound by Nature or 
Fate, 70. 

Illustration of, 74. 

Mediate, 63. 

Miracles Done Openly, 83, 89. 

Objections to, 66, 67, 158. 

Presumption Against, 66. 

Science Acknowledges, 68. 

Subject to Criticism, 83. 

The Witnesses of, 64. 

Unquestioned by Contempora- 
ries, 160. 

Were Disciples Deceived in, 77. 

Mohammedanism, 15. 
Morality, 15, 17. 
Moral Obligation, 9, 164. 
Moses, 7, 15, 21. 
Muratorian Fragment, 32. 
Mussulman, 17. 

Nabonidus, 43. 
Nature, 8, 11. 
New Testament, 7, 52. 
Norton, 37. 



Objections, 8, 13, 157. 
Obligation, Moral, 9, 164. 
Old Testament, 7, 49. 
Ordinary Inspiration, 47. 
Origin, 25, 28, 37. 
Orphic Verses, 22 

Pagan Nations, 12, 14. 

Paley, 29. 

Pentateuch, Author of, 21, 29. 

Persecutors Become Christians, 93. 

Personality, 8, 163. 

Personal Revelation, 8. 

Peter, Gospel of, 37. 

Philo, 29. 

Philosophy, 78. 

Plato, 17, 72. 

Pliny, 27, 54, 100. 

Polycarp, 24, 34. 

Porphyry, 26, 29, 93. 

Prophecy, 119. 

Cyrus in, 131-135. 

Defined, 119. 

Egypt in, 124. 

Fulfillment the Test, 120. 

Historic Evidence of, 121. 

Nineveh and Babylon in, 121. 

Proofs of Christianity, 120. 

Prophets Commanded of God, 120, 

Prophecies of Christ, 136. 

Regarding Fate of Jewg, 127. 

Regarding Man of Sin, 137. 

Regarding Nations Adjacent to 
Israel, 130. 

Regarding Tyre, 126. 

Relation of Jews, 131. 

RamesesIL, 41. 

Recapitulation, 96. 

Reason, 45. 

Reconciliation, 9. 

Religion, 15, 17. 

Resurrection, 64. 

Revelation- 
Contained in Bible, 7, 8, 14. 
Historic, 9. 
Imparts Knowledge to Man, 10. 



172 



Apologetics 



Revelation— Continued. 
Need of, 7, 12, 13. 
No Valid Objection Against, 8. 
Objections Considered, 13, 157. 
Special— 
In Harmony with Nature, 10, 11. 
Personal, 8. 
Tests of, 14. 
Rufinus, 33. 

Sacrifice, 16, 17. 
Samaritan Pentateuch, 30. 
Schaff, Philip, 31, 32. 
Scripture- 
Aim of, 73. 

Authenticity of, 18. 

Authors of, 20. 

Canon, of New Testament, 32. 

Consists of, 18. 

Documentary Evidence, 34. 

Hittite Testimony, 40. 

History Confirmed, 22, 26. 

Importance of, 19, 26. 

Inspiration of, 45. 

Muratorian Fragment, 32. 

Old Testament before Christ, 29. 

Origin of, 19. 

Samaritan Pentateuch, 30. 

Septuagint, 30. 

Teachings of, 20. 

Teaching of Church Fathers Con- 
cerning, 24. 

Testimony Regarding Christ's, 23. 

See Bible. 
Septuagint, 30. 
Serapion, 37. 



Skeptical Philosophy, 78. 
Socrates, 12, 17. 
Solon, 15. 
Sprecher, 48, 147. 
Strabo, 23. 
Suetonius, 26. 100. 
Supernatural Revelation, 11. 
Syrian Version, 36. 

Tacitus, 26, 99, 101. 

Tel-el- Amarna Tablets, 39, 124. 

Talmud, 92. 

Tatian, 35, 

Tertullian, 24. 

Testament, Old and New, 7, 18. 

Testimony of Heathen Writers, 22. 

Theism, 7. 

Theodoret, 35. 

Theology, Natural, 7. 

Theologian, Duty of, 7. 

Titus, 137. 

Uniformity of Nature, 67. 
Unseen Universe, 68. 

Veders, 14. 
Version— 

Curetonian, 36. 

Peshito, 36. 

Septuagint, 30. 

Syriac, 36. 
Van Oosterzee, 47, 54. 

Will of God Revealed, 9. 
Wright, Dr. G. F., 36. 

Zahn, 87. 



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